Virgin Sangria mocktail recipe
Black tea, orange, tart cherry and macerated fruit for a dry-fruited wine-glass serve.
Method: Build · Glass: Stemmed wine glass · Time: 30 minutes plus chilling · Difficulty: Intermediate
Ingredients
- 3 oz strong chilled black tea
- 1 oz tart cherry juice
- 1 oz fresh orange juice
- ½ oz fresh lime juice
- ½ oz demerara syrup
- ¼ cup apple, orange and blackberry pieces
- 2 oz chilled club soda
- to fill large ice cubes
How to make it
- Combine the fruit pieces and demerara syrup in a small jar; rest for 20 minutes in the refrigerator.
- Add chilled tea, cherry juice, orange juice and lime to the fruit, then stir once.
- Fill a wine glass with large ice and pour in the fruit and liquid.
- Top with club soda, lift once with a bar spoon and add the orange wheel and blackberry.
Garnish
A thin orange wheel and one blackberry
Why this balance works
The tea gives this drink a dry edge that keeps cherry and orange from reading like fruit punch. Let the fruit sit with the sugar long enough to perfume the syrup, but not so long that the apple goes brown or the blackberry seeds cloud the drink. Club soda is added last because it is there to lighten the serve, not to disappear into a long stir. If your cherry juice is sweetened, leave the demerara out until you taste the mix.
Technique to keep
Maceration is simple: the fruit and sugar wait together while the rest of the drink is cold. It is not a reason to mash everything into pulp. Keep the pieces large enough to look deliberate in the glass, use chilled tea and add bubbles only at the end. Large ice melts more slowly than crushed ice, so the fruit stays in focus instead of becoming a diluted pitcher drink.
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