Sangria hits a home run!

For this first time on foodierachel, prepare to be shocked…..and then amazed! Yes, we are featuring something different than we’ve EVER done before.

Dare I say it?……the “A” word? I mean, I don’t know why I’ve never said it before- this is MY blog. And I haven’t signed any new contracts lately. And I am an adult who can make perfectly rational and responsible decisions.

Still with me?

Lets begin this little story back last summer, when a fellow co-worker was being inundated with big beautiful blackberries. I gladly agreed to take home a gallon’s worth of the harvest’s best blackberries.

Only when I got home the blackberries started to smell. Not like a rotten smell, but a more pungent smell. They were fermenting! Not knowing what to do with fermenting blackberries, I quickly froze them until I knew what I was going to do with them.

And then winter came, then spring. Then I cleaned out the freezer. Pulling out this huge bounty of blackberries- it hit me. Blackberry wine. Just about the ONLY thing you can make with partially fermented blackberries.

So wine I made. Being that I’ve probably tasted less than 5 wines in my lifetime, I really had no idea what I was doing. And to be perfectly honest I didn’t expect it to turn out. I didn’t measure anything, sterilize anything, or buy any fancy equipment.

This was a completely blind and innocent experiment. I used a big glass container to ferment the berries in, added water and sugar, then waited……and waited. Finally I pressed and strained the berries and put them in another glass jug with a narrow spout. I covered the spout with a balloon, secured an air-tight seal with plastic wrap- then covered the entire thing in aluminum foil and let it sit in the dark.

The balloon filled up with air- then after almost 2 weeks, it wilted. The wine was ready! And the best part?

Its not bad- AT ALL!

So tonight I decided to make a very special cocktail- a Sangria. I put one sliced peach and 2 sliced strawberries in my glass. Filled it a little over half with my homemade blackberry wine, then topped it off with club soda and a sprig of mint.

It was delicious! And girls, this cocktail delicacy WILL be making an appearance at the scrap booking party. You can count on it!

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