The Rich Twist Your Favorite Patio Sangria Needs

Nothing says "summer" like enjoying a cool, refreshing, juicy pitcher of sangria on your patio. And the beauty of sangria comes in its ability to be customized about as far as your imagination can take you. When you parse it down to the very basics, sangria is just wine (and maybe other alcoholic ingredients) with an assortment of fruits and juices/mixers. This leaves a lot of room for modification, and so you'll see a ton of different recipes for sangria which all call for a variety of juices, fruits, berries, and everything else — including a certain liquor that will give your sangria a richer flavor.

There are some rules of thumb to keep in mind when making your favorite sangria. You can use a lemon-lime soda or ginger ale to add an element of spritz to your concoction. You can also add some fruit-based liqueurs to help in giving a little more body to your sangria, so the wine doesn't have to carry the drink all on its own. But one thing you really ought to try is adding a helping of bourbon to your sangria. It's already known that whiskey works well with wine — just look at the mesmerizing layers of the New York sour. And the depth and complexity added by implementing bourbon in sangria is something that you should consider a must-try next time you whip up a pitcher.

Bourbon is, of course, one of the all-time great base spirits for cocktails of all kinds, from the tart whiskey sour to the bright, juicy paper plane. It's definitely a distinct spirit, but it has an uncanny ability to act as a comfortable foundation for sweet syrups, vibrant fruit flavors, and even more complex ingredients such as wine. On top of that, bourbon tends to offer notes such as vanilla, butterscotch, and caramel. So when it comes to adding bourbon to your sangria, just think about these delicious undertones of bourbon's flavor profile mixing and mingling with all the bright flavors already in your mixture.

On top of this, bourbon will work great in sangria no matter which kind of wine you choose to use. Recipes abound of cool, refreshing sangrias with white wine as well as sophisticated but still immensely juicy sangrias with red wine. The real advantage for you here is that, since bourbon is quite adaptive, you can start by simply adding it to whatever version of sangria you prefer. Fruits such as cherry, strawberry, citrus, and more can all work great with bourbon, so there's no reason to not try it out regardless of the sangria you make.

You might think that, since it's been made quite clear that you can customize sangria to your heart's content, there aren't any rules when it comes to this beverage. While that's mostly true, there are some loose guidelines to keep in mind when making your sangria, whether you're going to add in the bourbon or not. Ignoring these tips won't destroy your sangria, but following them can help to maximize your sangria to its full potential.

When you think of sangria, wine is probably the first ingredient that comes to mind, and it's in fact a crucial ingredient to make a sangria that suits you. There's no need to break the bank on a wine that you're going to throw into sangria — you can easily get good red wines for under $30 and solid white wines for any budget. A drier, well-rounded wine will keep your sangria from becoming too sweet, so keep that in mind. Also, if you want to spritz up your sangria a bit, lemon-lime soda or ginger ale could go a long way in adding a simple, refreshing boost. Soda will also help to lengthen the taste profile of the sangria. So whether you're using soda, different fruits, different wines, and of course bourbon, there are tons of ways to enjoy a sip of sangria on a hot summer day.