If you tell them its Sangria, they will order the Sangria

No one at my job is buying the Sangria. The owners passed on their recipe when we first opened and its always returned by guests. It sucks.

I can't remember all the ingredients but I do remember putting in a whole cup of white sugar and bottle of champagne in it. SO GROSS.

So, when I saw our Sangria container empty I decided to wing it and make my own. There were a ton of things I could have done but I had to think what recipe would be "bartender-friendly". That means that I could have made a Sangria that required a fruit-base and fruits to soak for days before even serving it. In the restaurant world, that would never make sense because I don't have the time. I need to make it with what I had on hand and could be made in five minutes.

Yes, there are places that are really involved with their cocktails and pay attention to the details I mentioned but where I work, it's not that type of place. We are a fast-paced bar, laid back and more of a "scene" than anything else. So....ya' gotta keep it simple, Sally.

Anytime I have had Sangria, there was a citrus and apple involved. Pretty simple.

I grabbed:

Montepulciano (red wine)
Grand Marnier
Apricot Brandy
Hennessy
Orange Juice
Apple juice

The red wine was the majority of the recipe and kept tweaking the rest until it tasted right. Well, maybe I tweaked a little too much because for some reason my manager and I couldn't stop tasting it!

What can I say? My job is so rough sometimes :-)