Try this spooky and fun twist on the classic red wine Sangria for your Halloween party. This Halloween Sangria (or Hallowine Sangria?!) is a delicious and fruity cocktail made with red wine, brandy, and orange juice!
If you prefer a warm red wine drink for your party, you could make this cranberry orange mulled wine and decorate the glasses like on the photos below to make it suitable for Halloween.
We also love this apple cider sangria, Thanksgiving sangria, or Christmas sangria (cranberry orange)!
Ingredients
Here’s what you need to make this delicious Halloween Sangria:
- Red wine – you can choose medium-cheap wine for this sangria, you want the wine to taste good but you won’t be able to taste all the nuanced flavors of the wine when there’s so many other flavorful ingredients involved. Sangria is a Spanish drink so I tend to choose Spanish wine to prepare it. Rioja wine is particulary popular in Spain to make this drink.
- Brandy – is used to make the drink more stronger by adding a liqueur with more alcohol content. Brandy is the most popular liqueur in sangria. You can also use cognac which is a French brandy produced in the Cognac region. A brandy can be produced anywhere in the world. If you don’t want to add more alcohol to the drink you can add orange juice or apple cider instead.
- Orange liqueur – Cointreau is my favorite orange liqueur. Orange liqueur adds more alcohol to the drink and an orange flavor. If you don’t have it you can add more brandy or just orange juice.
- Simple syrup – it’s used to sweeten the drink. I made brown sugar simple syrup to add those caramel flavors of brown sugar to the drink. Simple syrup is just like the name says – so simple, you just need sugar and water to make it. You could also just add sugar to your drink and stir it (and stir, and stir..) until the sugar is dissolved. I think it’s much quicker to just make simple syrup – this way you can be sure that all the sugar is dissolved, your drink is uniformly sweet and you won’t taste any crunchy sugar crystals while you drink your sangria. Instead of simple syrup, you could sweeten your drink with maple syrup.
- Different kinds of fruit – oranges, apples, and lemons and traditionally used to make sangria. I like to use more fruit in this recipe since this is not a traditional sangria but a Halloween sangria! Dark or red-colored fruit are preferred, so you could add black grapes, blueberries, pomegranate arils (here’s a tutorial with video showing how to cut a pomegranate), blackberries, black or red currants. You can serve your sangria with fruit salad or if you don’t like it, you can use the fruit to infuse the drink then strain it.
- A stick of cinnamon – adds subtle warm flavor. You can omit it.
To garnish the drink you will need:
- Gummy worms or different kind of spooky add-ins such as candy eyeballs. You could also make homemade ‘eyeballs’ by sticking bluberries into lychee fruit!
- Fake blood drips to decorate the glasses – they make them really stand out!
- I used grenadine to make them. Grenadine is sweetened pomegranate syrup. It tastes sweet and has bright red color so it’s perfect for this decoration. A great thing about this garnish is that it hardens and stays on the glass, so you can use this glass more than once. Grenadine syrup doesn’t impact the taste of the drink.
- You could also use any other red-colored fruit juice and combine it with sugar. Cook it just like grenadine to thicken it.
- You can also use simple syrup or corn syrup and red food coloring.
- Orange slices – to decorate the rims.
What you could also add:
- You could add ice to your sangria if you want to chill it more. If you don’t want to dilute your drink you can freeze some fruit such as black grapes and use them to chill your sangria!
- You could top your sangria with ginger ale or club soda/sparkling water if you prefer your sangria fizzy. Add it just before serving.
Step by step instructions
STEP 1: Make brown sugar simple syrup: combine sugar and water in a small saucepan. Heat, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the wine and simple syrup into a large pitcher.
STEP 2: Add the liqueurs: brandy and orange liqueur.
STEP 3: Add the orange juice.
STEP 4: Make the fruit salad: cut the orange, apple, and lemon into small cubes. Add the blueberries and pomegranate arils. Add the fruits and cinnamon stick to the pitcher.
Stir everything together and chill for 30 minutes to 4 hours.
STEP 5: Add the gummy worms to the sangria just before serving.
STEP 6: Make the ‘blood drips’: heat the grenadine in a small saucepan until thick/syrupy. It should still be pourable while hot but it will thicken quickly when you take the pot off the heat. Spoon the thickened syrup onto the glass rim creating ‘blood drips’.
Pour your chilled sangria into the glasses, add some fruit salad into each glass.
Garnish the glasses with blood orange slices.
Enjoy!
Storage
The longer you chill the sangria the better it will taste. Keep the fruit in Sangria no longer than 12 hours – strain your drink and put it back in the fridge, discard the fruit. The fruit will be good to eat for up to 4 hours in the drink. After this time it will be mushy.
You can store sangria without fruit for up to 2 days in the fridge.
More Halloween recipes
- Pizza Mummies
- Strawberry Ghosts (Halloween Chocolate Covered Strawberries)
- Mummy apple hand pies – easy Halloween treats
- Pretzel spiders – healthy Halloween treats
- Mummy Hot Dogs
- Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins (decorated with spider’s web cocoa icing)
Did you make this recipe? RATE THE RECIPE or tell me in the COMMENTS how you liked it! You can also add a photo of your dish. It would make me very happy and will help other readers. Thank you!!
Halloween Sangria
Ingredients
for the sangria:
- 1 bottle red wine 750ml
- 1/4 cup brandy 60ml
- 2 tablespoons orange liqueur such as Cointreau or more brandy
- juice from 1 blood orange or regular orange
- 1/2 blood orange or regular orange
- 1/2 apple
- 1/2 lemon
- 1/4 cup blueberries optional
- 1/4 cup pomegranate arils optional
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1 cinnamon stick optional
garnish:
- 6 tablespoons grenadine pomegranate syrup*
- blood orange slices
- gummy worms
Instructions
- Make brown sugar simple syrup: combine sugar and water in a small saucepan. Heat, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved.
- Add the wine, brandy, orange liqueur, orange juice, and simple syrup into a large pitcher.
- Make the fruit salad: cut the orange, apple, and lemon into small cubes. Add the blueberries and pomegranate arils.
- Add the fruit salad and cinnamon stick to the pitcher.
- Stir everything together and chill for 30 minutes to 4 hours.
- Add the gummy worms to the sangria just before serving.
- Make the ‘blood drips’: heat the grenadine in a small saucepan until thick/syrupy. It should still be pourable while hot but it will thicken quickly when you take the pot off the heat. Spoon the thickened syrup onto the glass rim creating ‘blood drips’.
- Pour your chilled sangria into the glasses, add some fruit salad into each glass.
- Garnish the glasses with blood orange slices.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- I used Spanish Rioja wine, which is the most popular wine to make Sangria.
- Fruit: you can use any type of fruit your want for this sangria, the more fruit types the better (this applies to only Halloween sangria, not regular sangria, I would keep the orange, lemon, and apple that are a part of the traditional Sangria), dark or red-colored fruit are preferred, so you could also add black grapes, blackberries, black or red currants.
- You could add ice to your sangria if you want to chill it more. If you don’t want to dilute your drink you can freeze some fruit such as black grapes and use them to chill your sangria!
- If you don’t have orange liqueur you can add more brandy or just orange juice.
- You can use granulated sugar instead of brown sugar. You can swap simple syrup for maple syrup.
- Alternatives to grenadine: you can use any red-colored fruit juice, combine it with sugar and cook until thickened. Simple syrup or corn syrup and red food coloring can also be used.
- You could top your sangria with ginger ale or club soda/sparkling water if you prefer your sangria fizzy. Add it just before serving.
- Calories = 1 serving (1/6 of the recipe). This is only an estimate!
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