Dear Catering Mavens,

With the heat of summer, it seems that we're sipping on margaritas at every festivity. While we love the frosty beverage, we want to do something different for our next shindig. Do you have a suggestion for a different hot-weather libation?

Summertime entertaining - choosing the perfect piece of meat or fish, accompanying it with a great sauce and watching it cook on the barbecue... Ah, the joys of creating an atmosphere for friends and family! At RSVP Catering we love the challenge of finding the perfect beverage to set the party apart. Ask anyone that knows us well and they will tell you about some of our most creative concoctions (most recently a pineapple-infused vodka martini). What is making an incredible comeback is the Spanish wine punch called sangria. It is a great accompaniment to spicy food and hot weather; sangria is sweet and fruity, cool and tasty.

The name "sangria" refers to the color of the wine used in its making, in this case, strong red wines with purplish highlights, similar to the color of blood. The word "sangre," the root of the word "sangria," means "blood" in Spanish. Sangria is based on the traditional red wine punch popular across Europe for hundreds of years. Sangria's first round of popularity in the United States came when the refreshing summer cooler was served at the Spanish Pavilion of the 1964 World's Fair in New York.

Traditionally, sangria is made with red wine, fruit juices, soda water, sometimes brandy and freshly cut fruits like oranges, lemons and apples. Good sangria begins with a decent wine; don't use cheap rotgut. Just as with cooking, if you wouldn't drink the wine straight from a glass, you shouldn't include it in a recipe. For authenticity, choose a Spanish wine, such as Rioja, or a nice zinfandel. Some recipes call for a simple syrup which is equal parts of sugar and water boiled until dissolved, but a really great trick is to purchase Torani syrup - the stuff they use in your latte at Starbucks. We recommend black currant syrup for red sangria and mango syrup for white.

Here are some recipes to get you started, but remember, the fun part of sangria (besides drinking it, of course) is creating your own version.

Red Sangria
1 bottle of red Rioja or zinfandel
4 ounces brandy
1 lemon quartered in wedges
1 orange quartered in wedges
4 strawberries, quartered in wedges (or any fruit you like)
2 ounces Torani black currant syrup
2 cups club soda

Pour wine in the pitcher and squeeze the juice wedges from the lemon and orange into the wines, then toss in the squeezed wedges and strawberries and add the brandy and syrup. Chill overnight. Add club soda just before serving on the rocks, garnished with more fresh fruit.

White Sangria
2 bottles dry white wine (sauvignon blanc for Spanish alvarino)
3/4 cup brandy
1/2 cup triple sec or other orange liqueur
3/4 cup simple syrup
3/4 cup passion fruit puree (available at Asian and Hispanic markets)
3 oranges, sliced in thin rounds
2 lemons, sliced in thin rounds
3 green apples, cored and thinly sliced
1 cup blackberries, sliced into halves

Combine all ingredients in a large pitcher and refrigerate overnight. Serve over ice.

There is a beautiful toast that we associate with this drink. It goes like this: "Salud, dinero, y amor, y tiempo para gustarlos." (Health, money and love, and the time to enjoy them.)


Cindy and Tamra, owners of RSVP Catering, like to accompany their sangria with seriously delicious Spanish tapas.