BatchPartyMake aheadFruit
Mocktail Sangria
A pitcher that improves as it sits. The best thing to put on the table when you're hosting.
- Prep
- 15 min
- Serves
- 8
- Glass
- Wine glass
- Difficulty
- Easy
Ingredients
- 3 cups red grape juice
- 1 cup strong brewed black tea, cooled
- 0.5 cup fresh orange juice
- 0.25 cup fresh lemon juice
- 2 tbsp simple syrup, or to taste
- 1 orange, sliced
- 1 apple, diced
- 1 cup halved grapes
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2 cups soda water, added at the end
Method
- 1Combine the grape juice, tea, orange juice, lemon juice and syrup in a large pitcher.
- 2Add the sliced orange, diced apple, grapes and cinnamon sticks.
- 3Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. This is not optional — the sitting is what turns juice into sangria.
- 4Just before serving, stir and top with the soda water.
- 5Serve over ice in wine glasses, spooning some fruit into each.
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Notes
- The black tea is the trick. It supplies the tannin that makes this taste like wine rather than fruit punch.
- Make it the night before. Sangria that has sat overnight is a different drink from sangria made an hour ago.
- Hold the soda until serving or it'll be flat by the time guests arrive.
Common questions
How do you make non-alcoholic sangria taste like wine?
Add tannin. Strong cold black tea, or a splash of unsweetened pomegranate juice, gives the drying structure that grape juice alone lacks — that's the quality most people notice missing.
Make one of these next
- Party Fruit Punch
A punch bowl that isn't sickly — built on tea and citrus rather than sugar, and it scales to any number.
- Virgin Pimm's Cup
The English summer drink — fruit, cucumber, mint and lemonade in a jug. Built for a garden and a crowd.
- Peach Iced Tea
Real peach and real tea, not syrup from a bottle. Makes a jug that disappears fast.
A new recipe each month
Plus new venues and a Dry January plan when it comes round.