1 cup sugar
1 cup water½ vanilla bean
2 whole star anise
½ teaspoon whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
2 (7-ounce) packages mixed dried fruit
2 (750 ml) bottles red wine
Ginger ale
In a medium saucepan, bring the sugar and
the water to a boil. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from
the heat, drop in the vanilla bean, star anise, cloves and cinnamon
sticks. Cover and leave to infuse and cool. When cool, pour the
syrup and the spices into a jar, cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to
use. The spiced syrup will keep for a week.
The night before you want to serve your
sangria, put the dried fruit into a large pitcher and pour over the wine.
Cover the pitcher with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Up to four hours before serving the sangria,
strain the spices from the syrup and stir the spiced syrup into the fruit and
wine.
Serve over lots of ice in tall glasses,
topped with ginger ale. I’d say about 2/3 sangria mixture to 1/3 ginger
ale. You can add ginger ale to the pitcher, but if it is not large
enough, mix the drinks in glasses as you serve. Drop a few pieces of the
dried fruit in each glass to garnish.
Easily serves 12, but will stretch to serve
more
Now You're Cookin',
Chef Alli