25 Days of Christmas: Day 20

For day 20 of my 25 Days of Christmas challenge, I decided to whip up a batch of holiday sangria. The basis of sangria is a mixture of wine and fruit and the rest is up to you to come up with the right mix of spices, juice, liquor, etc to make your sangria complete. Because of this, sangria is one of those things that has limitless options of what you can do. There are so many recipes out there it's enough to make your head spin! I pinned a couple different holiday ones and this one sounded a little more festive to me so I gave it a whirl. This is another project that you need to start the night before because it needs 24 hours to seep.

Ingredients:
2 bottles Merlot (or 1 large bottle)
1 bottle ginger ale
1 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 large orange cut up
1 large apple cut up
6 to 10 cinnamon sticks
1/2 bag of cranberries

Just now reviewing the recipe, I realize I accidentally did a full bag of cranberries and I thought it was a little much! Now I see that the recipe calls for 1/2 a bag which makes a lot more sense since I was going to suggest doing half a bag. But onto the steps.

Step 1: In a medium pot, combine Merlot, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Let simmer for ten minutes, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved.

Step 2: Pour immediately into a sealed pitcher or other container. Chop apples and oranges and add them along with the cinnamon sticks  and cranberries to the mixture.

Step 3: Cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Step 4: Add ice and ginger ale to serve.

I served this at a get together I had with my cousins and everybody loved it. It was delicious and had the perfect holiday spice. I forgot to take a picture of it all pretty in the punch bowl and in the cups but above is an up close of it seeping in the fridge. You can also bottle this up and it makes a great gift!