Sun, bulls, paella, sangria and olé. Those five words are embedded in the vocabulary of a large part of the international client who has just landed in our country, but the irony is that the sangria, present ad nauseam today, possibly does not have a very Spanish ID.
That does not mean that we have not turned it, intentionally or unintentionally, into a gastronomic flag of dubious reputation, usually made with the most aggressive winesa huge amount of sugar and ice, a lot of ice, mercilessly watering thousands of tourists annually.
In fact, it fits the backlash that a British ask for sangria in our country and don’t know that its origins have more to do with them than with our own history, but let’s not get ahead of events, but rather how to claim sangria.
This is precisely what they do at the Madrid restaurant Terracotta (Calle de Velázquez, 80), which apart from being fashionable and eating especially well, has made the British ancestor of bloodletting: the sangaree.
The sangaree, a drink with history
It is not necessary to be a linguist to verify that the differences between sangaree and indent are minimal, but in this case, the former is the mother of all indents. As expected, the British were in between, as it was a drink that achieved some popularity in the Caribbean colonies, which is where the origin of the word is cited sangareeas explained Ana Vega in Surinenglish.
Following this common thread, the concept sangaree is nothing more than one blended wine, usually fortified, as were the Madeira or the Port, where spices, lemon juice and sugar were also added and which has more to do with a punch than what we consider sangria. In fact, this concept of sangaree is found in Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amériquealready in 1722, and which is connected with that way of understanding this drink, glossed by the Father Labata French missionary sent by Louis XIV to America.
Now, did we Spaniards need such a word? Possibly not, well the mixture of lemon, wine and sugar in Spain has been lemonade for centuries Until recently, due to American influence, we also ended up buying sangria instead of lemonade, a product that is non-alcoholic on the other side of the pond.
dignify the bleeding
With the historical ground more or less paved, it is now worth asking the other question: at what point did the sangaree, in addition to becoming sangria, was it supposed to make such a low-quality cocktail? And that’s where the answers come in. Miguel Angel Jimenezpartner of the beverage consultancy Libé Cocktailsand responsible for the fact that Terracotta sangarees have become a bestseller.
“We were clear that sangria can be a very good product and that a sangria is not just anything”, he begins, assuring that “it is a concept that, if it is taken on the right path, has many possibilities”.
“Originally, the sangaree it’s a punch but we wanted to fight for that individual shot of bleeding and differentiate. There are already bleeding cava, wine or other fermented. We do not intend to fight against this market, but to add more diverse offers”, he warns.
For it they use four pillars such as their sangarees: citrus & floral, fruity & spicy, creamy & herbal and seasonal sangaree. All of them are based on artisan liqueurs, on balance and, above all, on going beyond the conventional wine part. “That is why we also seek to work with cider, with Canarian banana wine, with Jerez and with less common fermented wines,” he says.
However, they do not throw the blanket over their heads or get out of a conception, but classical, at least understandable. “They are sangarees for the 21st century with local and seasonal ingredients because we know that sometimes we mixologists go too far with strange flavors and the client does not understand what is being offered. But he knows what a pear, a banana or a passion fruit is, and that makes it a better-known format”, he summarizes.
gastronomic sangrias
If you wanted the sangria to accompany the paella, need white socks in sandals and demand 30 degrees of temperature, you are wrong. Or at least in Terracotta, where the gastronomic part allows them to pair and accompany their sangarees with food, “but also to celebrate, as afterwork or as a drink“, reasons Miguel Ángel, who breaks a spear so that his consumption is not seasonalized.
“The customer sees the work behind it and sees the quality of the product and is willing to pay for it“He summarizes. It is not the same as a battle sangria on the beach with a lot of ice, a ton of sugar and the cheapest sparkling wine in the supermarket for which they will later charge us 30 euros.
Therefore, their clarifications will explain why people have been expelled from the bloodletting by “using poor quality products, a lot of sugar so that everything is sweet and masks defects or that there is no knowledge in the execution.” Terracotta avoids all this, where they also advocate these varieties of sangaree as an alternative even in more dessert profiles or in search of the client’s differential palate.
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“Citrus and floral ones sell very well,” he comments, which includes elderflower liqueur, fresh grapefruit and lemon juice, orange blossom mead and sparkling banana with passion fruit, all macerated by themselves, but “they all really sell well, like the fruity and spicy“, which in this case has vanilla liqueur, fresh orange and lemon juice, strawberry syrup with orange peels and cinnamon, and oloroso wine.
Fortunately, in all this deployment, we see how the bleeding or the sangaree (or blood) end up reaching the river and Terracotta shows that there is a different way of understanding a very Spanish drink —contemporarily— that deserves much more repercussion and life, apart from the condemnation of glass jars, gas station ice and white sugar to which we want to condemn them.
Images | Terracotta
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