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Christmas is only 2 weeks away y’all! I cannot believe it. We’ve still got SO much shopping to do. Not to mention, we have yet to get the Christmas eve menu in place. We do, however, have the drink menu finalized thanks to this delicious holiday red sangria.

We love serving sangria at any major family gatherings. It’s easy to drink, cheap to make in big batches, and can be adapted to the seasons or festivities easily. In the summertime, we love doing a white sangria with stone fruits like peaches, cherries and plums. In the winter though, we reach for the red wine. Pears, pomegranate, and citrus are all in season and pair perfectly with fruit forward red wines. A little kick of brandy and you won’t know what hit you!

We typically opt for Spanish wines when we make sangria, like Tempranillo or Grenache, but you can truly make it with almost any bolder red wine. We recommend using reasonably priced wines, since you’ll be adding lots of juice and fruit to it. No need to spring for fancy red wine for this recipe!

In this particular recipe, we used cranberry pomegranate juice, but you can definitely use plain cranberry or any cranberry-fruit blend (i.e. apple or berry). We also added a heavy pour of brandy because we love the taste it adds, but you can omit or decrease the amount if you aren’t too fond of the flavor. Fruit-wise, we opted for pear, orange, cranberry, and pomegranate. Feel free to omit what you don’t like or add in other fruits you have on hand!

This Holiday Red Sangria recipe makes about one pitcher full, making it the perfect drink option for Christmas dinner or upcoming holiday parties! Plus check out some of these other holiday inspired cocktail recipes from some of our favorite food bloggers below!