Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

The best fall sangria recipe: Get in the spirit with this boozy autumn drink

How to make the best fall sangria

Lindsay Parrill
By

There’s something about a festive drink that matches the mood to get you into the spirit of whatever you happen to be celebrating. A frosty margarita just makes you want to throw on a swimsuit and hit the pool. A flute of bubbly champagne often invokes our inner Gatsby as we raise toasts in our finest cocktail-wear. A cold beer is appropriate on many occasions, but especially at a baseball game, with a piping hot, mustard-slathered hot dog in the other hand. And this fall sangria, complete with autumnal fruits and flavors, will put you into the most festive of pumpkin-pickin’ moods. So as the weather starts to cool, and stores are flooded with everything orange, mix yourself a batch of this delicious fall cocktail. You can consider it a reward for all the hard work of raking those leaves.

Sangria is traditionally a Spanish cocktail, made from mixing wine (either white or red) with fruit juices. The combinations are endless, and people have been enjoying countless versions of this delicious drink for ages. One of the fun elements of this punch is that it can be totally customized according to the season. In the summer, a sweet white wine like Riesling is delicious when combined with warm-weather fruits like pineapples, mangos, watermelon, or berries. In colder months, a zippy Pinot Noir can be mixed with winter fruits such as cranberries and clementines, spiced with cloves or ginger.

Recommended Videos

But this time of year, when leaves are changing, temperatures are only just starting to cool, and there are so many gorgeous and delicious fall fruits available, this sangria recipe is the absolute best.

Related

Autumn Harvest Fall Sangria recipe

Facebook/Inspired by Charm

(From Inspired by Charm)

When selecting fruit for your sangria, be sure to look for pieces that are ripe, but still somewhat firm in their texture. They’re going to be submerged in liquid, and shouldn’t be so overly ripe that they’re falling apart. Of course, feel free to add any other fruits that strike your fancy. Be creative!

This recipe also calls for a cinnamon simple syrup. Simple syrup is a wonderful ingredient used often in cocktails and desserts. It’s essentially just equal parts sugar and water, cooked down together until they form a sweet “syrup.” This syrup can be flavored with basically anything. In this case, it’s cinnamon. But feel free to experiment with different flavors like orange, mint, rosemary, lavender, or lemon, to name just a few. Use these syrups to moisten cakes, sweeten your coffee, dress up a fruit salad, and of course, mix into cocktails.

You can store your simple syrups in a glass jar in the fridge for about a month. When they start to get cloudy, it’s time to toss them.

Ingredients:

  • 1 bottle light Spanish wine, such as Rioja
  • 2 cups apple cider
  • 1/2 cup pear or apple brandy
  • 1/4 cup cinnamon simple syrup (recipe below)
  • 1 apple, diced
  • 1 green pear, diced
  • 1/2 orange, quartered and sliced
  • Seeds from one pomegranate
  • 3 – 4 cinnamon sticks

Method:

  1. In a large pitcher, mix all of the ingredients together.
  2. Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.

Cinnamon simple syrup:

In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar to a boil. Cook until the sugar dissolves and the liquid starts to thicken. Transfer to a glass jar and add 6 cinnamon sticks. Chill for at least 4 hours.

That’s it — now you’re ready to enjoy a delicious drink by the fire, while roasting pumpkin seeds, or to serve as the signature drink at your Halloween party.

Editors' Recommendations

Lindsay Parrill
Lindsay Parrill
Contributor
Lindsay is a graduate of California Culinary Academy, Le Cordon Bleu, San Francisco, from where she holds a degree in…
The 9 best rums for Mojitos that you can get behind
Making a Mojito? You're going to need a nice light rum, like one of these standout selections
A hand serving a glass of Mojito on a table.

In the vast land of rum cocktails, the Mojito is an elite player. This classic cocktail, born in Cuba, is both a cinch to make and extremely rewarding to drink. Made of rum, lime, mint, sugar, and soda water, the beverage is basically the liquid definition of refreshing.

While often pegged as a summer drink, the Mojito is really accessible year-round. In fact, like a good tiki drink, the cocktail can be even more desirable during the colder months as it can deposit you somewhere sun-kissed and tropical. Yet, because the drink is so dependent on its spirit base, it can only be as good as the rum that goes into it.

Read more
The 10 best movie drinking games to play on Netflix
You'll love playing these movie drinking games

Watching something can be a great way to stave off the boredom that everyone faces from time to time. Whether it's a great show or movie available on Netflix, streaming services have ensured that we'll always have something to watch. Just having something to watch often isn't enough, though. In fact, what some people need is a game that goes alongside the latest thing on Netflix, which is why we've developed this list of drinking games that are perfect for Netflix subscribers.

You don't need to follow along with these games to get to a good drinking game with anything you're watching. What you might find, though, is that these drinking games have been carefully calibrated to ensure that you have as much fun as possible. Once you see a game that looks like fun, just grab a case of cheap beer or whatever your preferred drink might be and get started. You can also check out our guides for board games and card-drinking games if you're looking for a drinking game that doesn't involve a screen at all.
Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail Official Trailer - John Cleese Movie (1974)

Read more
Incredible St. Patrick’s Day drinks: Check out these fantastic cocktail recipes
These fun and dynamic drinks will be a surefire hit at any St. Patrick's Day celebration
Cocktail Crossing Currents Knappogue

St. Patrick's Day is a holiday for imbibers. Whether you gravitate toward spirits or beer, there's a St. Patrick's Day drink or riff for you to enjoy as America pours celebratory dye into its rivers and dons every article of green clothing it has. (There's even Irish wine, if you feel so inclined.)

Here, we're focused on mixed drinks, ones that flex some Irish flair or are at least inspired by the land of rolling green hills and shamrocks -- the kind of drink you can clutch triumphantly in hand as you observe a holiday more than 1,000 years old. We won't quiz you on who St. Patrick was, nor will we check your plate to make sure you're eating traditional Irish bacon and cabbage (though you probably should). We just want to give you another excuse to celebrate.

Read more