MY COOLER
We might be biased, but the truth is, wine cocktails are having a moment again, and we're here for it. Of course, we don't think they should have ever gone out of style, but alas, let’s focus on the positives, shall we?
Wine cocktails are pretty much as gorgeous as they are light and refreshing. They make an easy drink regardless of how many people you are serving. Plus, wine cocktails are season-less because every holiday and occasion has a wine cocktail that can dress up (or down) for the event. So go ahead, grab a bottle (or Bev can) and let's get to mixing the best and easiest wine cocktails out there!
Simple Wine Cocktails
New York Sour
A traditional sour is composed of spirit, citrus, and sugar. Occasionally, if you're fancy and know it, you might even include an egg white in there! The sour is one of the most well-known cocktails commonly enjoyed today. It is believed that the Whiskey Sour comes from the 19th century and first appeared in the 1862 edition of "Jerry Thomas Bartenders Guide.”
Here’s what you’ll need:
2 ounces rye whiskey or bourbon
1 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed
3/4 ounce simple syrup
1/2 ounce red wine
Optional: 1 egg white (optional)
Steps
- Add whiskey, lemon juice, and simple syrup into a shaker with ice and shake like your life depends on it and your liquid is well chilled. If you’re throwing an egg white in there, shake that with the other liquids before the ice so that it’s nice and foamy.
- Strain and pour into a glass over fresh ice.
- Pour red wine over the back of a bar spoon, doing so allows the wine to float on top of the drink.
White Wine Spritzer
A white wine spritzer is the ultimate drink. Not only has it been around forever, but it also, contrary to popular belief, is not just a beverage for van driving soccer moms. Spritzers offer a fun and exciting way to add bubbles to your wine with a splash of club soda. They are light and easy to make to your taste preferences.
Even better, you can pre-make them in generous quantities, making them easy to share and serve at all of the summer events you're going to have now that the world is opening up again. Depending on the white wine you choose, this white wine spritzer may be the perfect pairing with your favorite summer dish, whether that's seafood pasta, herb-crusted chicken in garlic cream sauce, mushroom risotto, pork loin with caramelized onions, or a light pasta salad.
For a traditional white wine spritzer, you’ll need:
3 ounces chilled white wine
1 ounce cold club soda
Garnish (lime, lemon etc)
Steps:
- Prepare ingredients
- Fill a white wine glass with ice
- Pour in the wine
- Top with club soda
- Garnish & serve
Sangria
A mixed alcoholic beverage from Spain and Portugal, the color of sangria changes based on the kind of wine you use. When you're making Sangria, the goal is to create a drink with all your favorite flavors, so there are no hard and fast rules for what you can or cannot put in your Sangria. Regardless of the season, it can always be sangria time. If you speak Spanish, you may have noted that "Sangria" is Spanish for "blood." While not exactly the most appetizing, the name relates to the drink's traditional red wine base.
While there are a ton of different ways to make sangria, here is our favorite recipe:
Bev PG Sangria
Ingredients (serving size 10)
5 cups Fruit – strawberries, oranges, pineapple, grapefruit, apples, raisins, etc.
2 Bev Pinot Grigio cans
Instructions
Cut fruit into small bite-sized pieces. Fill pitcher completely to the top.
Fill the pitcher with Pinot Grigio and completely cover the fruit with wine.
Cover top of the pitcher with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight so the fruit can be infused with Pinot Grigio. Do this the evening before your party.
The day of your party, just before guests arrive, remove the pitcher of White Wine Sangria from the refrigerator. Stir fruit with a long spoon.
Fill glasses with fruit and berries until half of the fruit is removed from the pitcher.
Slowly fill the pitcher to the top with more Pinot Grigio. Stir wine and fruit.
Serve White Wine Sangria in the fruit-filled glasses.
To replenish the sangria jug, refill the jug with more Pinot Grigio. Stir to combine. Store in a cool place like the refrigerator when not in use.
To serve, again remove the fruit from the pitcher and place in glasses. Pour the White Wine Sangria over the fruit. Enjoy!
You can also sprinkle different types of fruit juices and fruit wines outside of grape wines into your sangria recipe for an extra-special kick (AKA a higher sugar level and alcohol content)!
There are so many interesting flavors of fruit wines—plum wine, fig wine, pineapple wine, cherry wine, banana wine, blueberry wine, blackberry wine, raspberry wine, and even rhubarb wine are just some of your options to turn this sangria into your own original recipe.
Mulled Red Wine
It's the most wonderful drink of the holiday season! We hope you read that in the sing-song voice we intended. Created by mixing mulled spices and cinnamon with red or white wine, mulled wine is a little like sangria. But, mulled wine is more ordinarily formulated using red wine.
While there are hundreds of ways of making this warm and cozy drink, we outlined its history and the steps in detail in this blog here. So go ahead, check it out and get ready to sit on the couch sipping this cocktail while cozying up reading a good book (or watching Bravo, whatever floats your boat).
Get Fancy
Kir Cocktail
The Kir Royale is a variation on Kir, a French cocktail concocted with a measure of 'crème de cassis' (a type of blackcurrant liqueur) and then topped with white wine. Kir Royale diverges from Kir because a traditional Kir is made with white wine, while a Kir Royale is created with champagne.
Regardless if you have a Kir or a Kir Royale, you're bound to have a delightful drink! Because it is an aperitif, it is often served in a champagne flute.
Ingredients:
3 to 4 tablespoons Crème de Cassis, Crème de Framboise or Chambord
1 (750 ml) bottle dry sparkling wine or Champagne, chilled
1/4 cup fresh raspberries or other fruit, optional
Add 2 to 3 teaspoons Crème de Cassis to a champagne flute.
Add in touch of fruit
Fill the flute with sparkling wine.
Serve immediately.
French 75
A drink that is rich with history, the French 75 dates to World War I. Created in 1915 at the New York Bar in Paris, the cocktail was said to have such a big kick that it was like getting shelled with a 75mm field gun.
While the recipe for this classic concoction has fluctuated over the years, today's recipe combines a champagne cocktail and a gin cocktail. It calls for gin, simple syrup, lemon juice, and champagne. With the perfect amount of gin, it is bubbly, fresh, and the ideal cocktail for a celebratory drink at your next dinner party! Doll your French 75 cocktail up with a lemon twist garnish!
See what the drink looks like altogether and in its best light with the Platings and Pairings recipe!
Mix It Up!
Regardless of what cocktail you choose to make, if there’s wine involved you’re bound to have a delightful time as long as you’re safe and with people you love! You can even have some fun trying to ferment your own wine using muscadine grapes, concord grapes, or grape juice concentrate, yeast nutrient, hot water, a clean bottle, and an oven. Whether you want to become amateur winemakers or play around with our cocktail recipes, fun is definitely on the menu.
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