ELDERFLOWER AND CITRUS SANGRIA

Elderflower and Citrus Sangria
   Serves 6-8

Ingredients: 

• 1 bottle (750ml) dry white wine
• 2 bottles (12 oz) Crabbie’s ginger beer*
• 3.5 oz Saint Germain
• 1 orange, sliced
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 1 lime, sliced

Intructions:

  Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and let chill one hour before serving. Serve over ice if desired.


*You can, of course, use a different brand of ginger beer if you prefer. Just like you can use tomato ketchup instead of tomato sauce on your spaghetti if you prefer. Yes, Crabbie’s is that much better than regular ginger beer. They’ve only recently started selling it in the US, but if you find a store near you that sells it, buy every single pack they have, because once you try it you won’t be able to get enough.

This is the first time I’ve tried Saint Germain and it is most certainly as delicious as the whole internet world makes it out to be. After googling through various white wine sangria recipes, I stumbled across one that used Saint Germain. Having no idea what that was, it was back to google, where I found this article. I discovered that Saint Germain is a liqueur made from elderflowers. I also discovered that the people who pick these elderflowers from the French hillside where they grow transport them back to the factory on bicycles. Bicycles. That’s some super whimsical dedication right there (not to mention inefficient. But they’re French so whimsical but inefficient dedication is kind of their specialty). On top of Saint Germain being delicious, the bottle is insanely gorgeous and makes the perfect addition to my imaginary pinterest-worthy bar cart where I keep my extensive and equally imaginary alcohol collection.

Between the sweet and unusual elderflower liqueur, the spicy ginger beer, and the bright citrus, this drink has the perfect combination of light and refreshing flavors that balance each other wonderfully. It was certainly the perfect drink for this Tuesday Boozeday which could not have come sooner. Except it could have, which is why I made this drink on Monday. I came back up from Florida last Monday, and it’s been one of those weeks where everything takes about 3x longer than you think and every time you do accomplish a task three more sprout up in its place.

When I picked the kids I nanny for up from tutoring (which they attend on Mondays and Thursdays), I asked their tutor why she hadn’t given them enough homework to last through the weekend. “I gave you two packets - one for Tuesday and one for Wednesday." Oh, right, the weekend isn’t for another 4 days. The crushing and disorienting realization made me want to simultaneously break down crying and laugh hysterically. I decided to make this post a day early, because if I can’t make Friday happen on Monday, at least I can make it Tuesday Boozeday whenever I want.