The Well-Tempered Chocolatier

I had a glass of sangria tonight at Kino Cafe, which features some of the best flamenco I’ve ever seen.  (Yes, I’ve been to Spain, but bear in mind that I was 18 and probably didn’t appreciate the finer things in life.  However, I probably did like the sangria in Spain.)  Anyway, my point is that if you haven’t been to see flamenco dancing at Kino Cafe, you must go post-haste and check it out.  It’s awesome.  The food is satisfactory at best, but let’s face it – no one’s there for the food.

But, back to sangria.  My recipe for sangria includes a bottle of cheap wine (Naked Grape Shiraz is a good choice, since it’s not too sweet), a bottle of club soda, and one each of an orange, (pink) grapefruit, lemon and lime.  I find a lot of sangrias too sweet, so I like adding citrus fruit for a bit of tartness.  The other good thing about using citrus fruits is that they tend to release juice into the sangria, and not suck up wine tastiness.  If you use apples or pears, as some places do, you end up concentrating the wine in the fruit – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it makes the actual sangria taste a little bit flat.  

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