Blood Never Tasted So Good

Every holiday I can think of has a festive drink to go with it. Christmas has eggnog. New Years is all about champagne. Even Thanksgiving dinner's not complete in my family without a few bottles of apple cider. Halloween gets the shaft, I tell ya. The shaft!

I had been thinking about what the perfect Halloween drink was for a few days before I decided on this wonderful, basic choice. For some reason, I kept going to the fantastically creepy and complicated (think green, bubbling cocktails with an eyeball replica dropped into it), instead of seeing all the potential in one of my all-time favorites.

Sangria. A sweet, fruity, refreshing drink hailing from the lands of Spain and Portugal. The name itself loosely translates to blood (it means "bloodletting" and the Spanish word for blood is 'sangre'). And, I mean, what's more Halloween than blood? Sure, you could throw a severed limb or a mummified corpse into the mix, but a blood-inspired option is just so basic for the creep factor of Halloween. And yummy. Sangria, that is. Sangria is yummy. I have no idea what blood tastes like...

I make sangria pretty regularly. It's my go-to drink for the summertime and it helps that it's so easy and cheap to make. So if you have a cheap bottle of red wine lying around, try out this "recipe" next week!

Ingredients:

a bottle (750ml) of red wine

1 cup of Triple Sec

1 cup of apricot brandy

3 cups of orange juice

sugar

slices of orange, apple and lemon

ginger ale

It's reaaallyy simple! This recipe is a combination of sangria from a few of my fav spots in the city (like Rosa Mexicano) and the recipe of a dear friend of mine and the boyfriend, who graciously shared his recipe over countless pitchers of the yummiest sangria. Combine the wine, Triple Sec, and brandy in a pitcher. Add sugar to taste. Slice your fruit and toss it in. Chill in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours. Before serving, top each glass with a bit of ginger ale.

And there you have it! You can even "halloween-ify" it by adding some fake blood on the outside of the pitcher or tossing in some candy eyeballs for a scary surprise :)

What drink are you mixing up during the Fall-O-Ween season? Let me know in the comments below!