Keepin' it Local

First of all, I'd like to provide a link to that pottery class I was talking about in my last post:

Dixie Pottery Gallery

The woman, as I said, was really nice and her husband was slappin' out the pottery with jaw-dropping dexterity. I was fascinated and really impressed. Check them out!

Moving on, however, I'd like to talk a little bit about some of my favorite subjects: Crafts and Sangria. Why both, you ask? In what possible world would crafts and sangria come not only in the same blog post, but even in the same sentence? In my blog post. That's where.

A couple of nights ago, my friend and Alaina and I were comparing our love for doing crafts. She was sitting on her floor, surrounded by top of the line scrap-booking swag and I was itching to bead some jewelry, so I jokingly suggested that we have a girls' night with crafts and wine. Because if doing crafts is fun and drinking wine is fun, how could they possibly not be fun together? The plan morphed into a project of Sangria making, which neither of us had ever done on our own, and so we set out to Publix for the necessary ingredients.

While looking around for wines (which I choose based on creativity of name and cuteness of label - apparently not too sophisticated), we decided to keep things local. Finding the end-cap with the San Sebastian Winery wine, we picked out a Vintner's Red and a Rosa, both of which we sampled during Alaina's birthday wine tasting, and either of which we decided would make a delicious base for Sangria.

The ingredients for our concoction are as follows:

1 Orange - sliced
1 Fuji apple - quartered and sliced
6 Large strawberries - sliced
1 bottle Vintner's Red Wine
1 bottle Sprite - 16 oz, chilled
2 Black Cherry tea bags
2 splashes Sailor Jerry Rum - delicious

We soaked the fruit first in the wine and the rum, then added the tea bags (just to steep in the wine), then the sprite on top of that and ice in our glasses. Let me just tell you...that first night...delicious beyond imagination. It smelled funky, but who smells Sangria?

The only issue arose the next night when we tried to refresh it over at a friends house for an evening of True Blood (Alaina wants to watch the 3rd season before the 4th comes out. I'm simply fascinated by this comedy hour that people call True Blood...no hate). The fruit had done its job beautifully, maybe too well, because the whole mess tasted like mushed and fermented strawberries. So, although they were wonderful on day one, we realized that strawberries would be a poor choice if we made Sangria again.

What was not a poor choice, however, was the choice of wine. I'm not usually partial to all of the Winery's wine selection, but it made a mean base for Sangria. In fact, if you're out during a hot summer evening in town, and you find yourself on the roof of the San Sebastian Winery, drinking and listening to live music (is that enough incentive for ya?) I would recommend the Sangria at the bar. The white is my favorite and I'm assuming they make it with the Vintner's White, since it seems to be their most basic wine. It's crisp and refreshing, with granny-smith apples as a biting garnish. Try it.

Not to mention, the San Sebastian Wine in Publix was well priced. When I'm not judging wine on creativity of name or cuteness of label, I'm judging my affordability. C'mon...I'm a college student. ;)

Until next time! <3