Apple sangria

Huzzah for bad cell phone pictures!

My favorite sangria memory, hands down, is from the night before my friend Jenny's wedding, at the groom's dinner thrown by her now-husband Dave's Cuban family at a huge old house north of Boston, right on the ocean. It had been a busy, very very hot couple of days before that and I remember how wonderful that sangria tasted as a heavy, windy rainstorm swept in from the ocean. Stress? Bah.  I don't think it was a particularly alcoholic mixture (I recall a drinking game being played that resulted in 10+ cups of the stuff being slammed by a bridesmaid and groomsman, and there were no hangovers the next day, so it couldn't've been too potent) but it was delicious and sweet and had cherries in it. Also we talked about Cthulu for president, and horses, and at one point one of the groom's uncles, in possibly the best entrance ever, arrived in the monsoon on a motorcycle. 

This, however, is solitary sangria. Long-day-of-holiday-cooking sangria. Watching-Game-Of-Thrones-on-the-couch-instead-of-doing-dishes sangria.

Apple Sangria

I had apples, and some cheap red wine I'm not super fond of, and brandy. I also had a few hours' worth of cooking to do for tomorrow, so I put this stuff together to hang out in the fridge for later. I didn't measure anything, but a glance at some small-batch sangria recipes yielded amounts that look roughly like what I used.

1 apple, sliced thinly

1 cup red wine 

1.5 oz brandy 

A few squeezes from half a lemon

1 tbsp sugar (simple syrup would've been better but I wasn't in the mood to make any)

A splash of cider...less than 1/4 c

A tea bag of mulling spices that came with the cider I bought at an orchard - about a tsp of mixed whole cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, etc.

Ginger ale, to top

Combine wine, brandy, sugar, cider, and lemon and stir to dissolve sugar. Add tea bag/mulling spices and apple slices and let refrigerate for awhile, a few hours if possible. Take the spices out after an hour though so it doesn't start tasting like a fall-themed candle. When you're ready,  pour over ice, making sure to get the apples, and top with a splash of ginger ale. Close your eyes and picture a storm rolling in off the Atlantic. Or something more appropriate to sangria, I guess, like Barcelona or something. Your call.