gallons for ghosts

While CD and I were in Asheville for our anniversary getaway, we took a culinary tour of the city.  We visited 6 different eating spots and had food and/or drinks at each. All were great, but the sangria we were given at one was just spectacular. My comparison is pretty weak-- I tend to refer to leftover red wine mixed with orange juice and a splash of bottled lemon juice as sangria.  The one we had was very hearty. I'd decrease the spices a lot to have it in the summer. This reminded me more of a mulled wine and was lovely on a cold evening.  Our tour guide said to email her for the recipe if we wanted it, so I did.

In return I received the recipe for five gallons of sangria.

I suppose I could host a big party, but most people I know would choose beer or wine and then I'd be left with 4 3/4 gallons of sangria.  Instead I hit up google for help. Did you know there are lots of recipe converters out there? I could swap from liters to cups and also decrease the recipe down to a single gallon. We might need to go even smaller, but if I'm buying all that booze I'd need a use for it!

Just in case you want to make sangria for everyone you know, or if you want to put it out for the parents of Trick or Treaters (you'd be very popular!) here is the handy dandy recipe.

Sangria, 5 gallons

1.5 liters white wine

1.5 liters red wine

0.5 liters dry sherry

0.5 liters port

0.375 liters brandy

3 c. simple syrup

4 c. orange juice

1 c. lemon juice

1 c. lime juice

1 cup chopped ginger

5 broken up cinnamon sticks

1/8 cup anise

2 Tbs cloves

2 each chopped: orange, lemon, lime

4-6 cups ginger ale or ginger beer to taste

If you think this looks as tasty as I thought it was, and if you were thinking of having me over, you could use the scaled recipe, here. I'm not sure if we could polish off even the smaller quantity without inviting more guests, but the more the merrier.

Sangria, 1 gallon

* Recipe rounded to nearest cooking fraction

1 1/3 cups white wine (1/3 liters)

1 1/3 cups red wine 

½ cup dry sherry (1/8 liter)

½ cup port

½ cup brandy

2/3 c. simple syrup (1/2 sugar, 1/2 water)

3/4 c. orange juice

1/4 c. lemon juice

1/4 c. lime juice

1/4 cup chopped ginger

1 broken up cinnamon stick

2 Tbs anise

1 tsp cloves

1/3 each chopped: orange, lemon, lime

1 cup ginger ale or ginger beer to taste