White wine spritzer with blood orange soda
A white wine spritzer is the perfect party drink any time of the year. It’s light and refreshing, which makes it a great cocktail for holidays when you are enjoying parties, but don’t want to overindulge. Wine spritzers are a great choice if you are trying to watch your calorie intake while still being able to enjoy a wine cocktail.
Blood oranges are in season during the winter months, as is most citrus. If you can’t find blood oranges, regular oranges or cara cara oranges make a great substitute.
A blood orange spritzer makes a great holiday drink. They are quick and easy to make, not too sweet and they are light and citrusy.Â
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How to make a white wine spritzer
Making a wine spritzer is possibly the easiest cocktail to put together. It’s simply mixing wine with something fizzy like soda or club soda and a twist of citrus. That’s all there is to it.
- First, fill your glass with a few cubes of ice.
- Then pour in a few ounces of Sauvignon Blanc or your favorite white wine.
- Add in freshly squeezed blood orange juice.
- Top with blood orange soda.
- Finish off the drink with a slice of orange peel and serve!
White wine spritzer with fruit
A wine spritzer is a great party drink because you can sip on this light cocktail and not feel too heavy. I like these all year for that reason. It’s the ideal summer drink, filled with fresh summer peaches and mint or your favorite fruit.
Depending on the season, you can swap out your favorite fruit and use a soda or tonic to compliment that flavor.
I do citrus in a white wine spritzer during the winter months. I like to tell myself that it’s an added dose of vitamin C during cold and flu season.
During the fall, slices of fresh apple are really nice in a white wine spritzer. In the springtime, blueberries, mango and pineapple start arriving and those are great additions to spritzers.
What to mix with white wine
The possibilities for this are endless. The most basic spritzer is white wine with a bit of club soda and maybe a bit of lemon zest. Those are fine, but often, I need a bit more.
You can make a white wine spritzer with Sprite by mixing a splash of the lemon lime soda with white wine. That is also delicious on a warm summer day and it couldn’t be easier.
Stroll the aisles of your grocery store and look for flavored sparkling water or fruit sodas like the one I used in this recipe to add fruity flavor to your drinks. By switching up the different sodas, you can make limitless variations of this cocktail all year.
You can swap out the soda for something like a ginger beer if you like it with a little more zing. The combinations are practically endless, you can use different sodas or tonic to change it up.
There are so many varieties of flavored sodas, tonics and seltzers out there that you could make a different one every weekend.
What to mix with sauvignon blanc
For this recipe and most of my white wine spritzers, I use sauvignon blanc. It is personal preference, but I’m not a fan of sweeter white wines. Sauvignon blancs are crisp and often described as “grassy” or “herby”.
They are high in acidity and low in sugar, which makes them ideal for this type of drink. Unlike chardonnay, it is not aged in oak, so it retains that fresh grape taste that blends well in a spritzer.
You can make a single drink or if you are hosting a gathering of any sort, in a big glass pitcher to serve them all. Making pitchers of drinks helps you to enjoy your own gathering instead of being stuck in the kitchen while everyone else is having fun. I speak from experience. It took me a very long time to learn this lesson.
Helpful tools for making wine spritzers:
- a zester with a channel knife is the way to go if you want to make nice strips of zest to garnish your drinks. This tool is also handy come holiday season when baking is in high gear. You can use this to zest all citrus, not just blood oranges!
- an inexpensive vegetable peeler is a great tool to have in your bar setup.
- a corkscrew is ESSENTIAL for making wine cocktails, unless you want to MacGyver your way in to that bottle. A good quality, basic corkscrew (also known as a wine key) will serve you well.
- This countertop juicer (like the one in the photo above) get all of the juice right out of your citrus with one good squeeze.
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Looking for more easy cocktail recipes?
- Apple Cider Bourbon Cocktail
- Restaurant-Style Bloody Mary
- Rosé Sangria with Summer Fruits
- Cherry Coconut Rum Slushie
- Mint Julep Kombucha Cocktail
- Summer Berry Smash
Blood Orange White Wine Spritzer
Ingredients
- 12 oz White Wine chilled (I used sauvignon blanc)
- 6 oz fresh squeezed blood orange juice
- 6 oz blood orange soda chilled
- Ice
Instructions
- Add a few cubes of ice to glass.
- Pour 4 oz of wine into each glass, pour a third of the blood orange juice into the glass and top with blood orange soda.
- Garnish with blood orange peel and a slice of blood orange, if desired.
Video
Notes
- I used blood orange soda from Whole Foods. I prefer it to other brands, but San Pellegrino makes a delicious blood orange soda and it is easily found at most grocery stores.
- If you can’t find blood orange soda, substitute Sprite or 7-Up and add a little extra juice to give it more blood orange flavor.
- You don’t want to use your very best bottle of wine here. That being said, don’t use one that you wouldn’t drink either. You will taste the wine in this drink, so choose something that is middle of the road.
Nutrition
*This post has been updated. It was originally published January 2016.
LOL Sissy! What a great story It mmust’vebeen so much fun to have all those folks together in your home. Priceless!
Sissy, it was magical! Some of my happiest memories 🙂
I remember doing exactly the same, Cheryl, sitting quietly by and absorbing all those fabulous stories! As the evening wore on, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself because then someone would realize it was past my bedtime and I’d MISS SOMETHING! Evenings to treasure, for sure!
And your cocktail looks wonderful! I haven’t seen blood oranges in my stores yet this year but I’ll be looking.
Thank you so much for reading the post! Those are absolutely some of my favorite memories… It was an education to realize they weren’t just Grandma & Grandpa, but they were PEOPLE with actual lives! LOL