Sanguine Sangria

• Designated as the national iced drink of Spain, Sangria took a firm hold in the US at the New York's World Fair in 1964. Sangria punch, a wine beverage for those who really don't like wine, combines red wine with chunks of fresh fruit, brandy or a fruit-flavored liqueur and some kind of carbonated beverage, such as ginger ale, club soda or lemon-lime soda. Sangria may also be made with wine varietals such as white wine, which transforms the sangria into sangria blanco.

A Rose by Any Other Name

• Recipes for pink sangria typically call for rose wine. Rose wine, not just a pretty pinkish wine with a prettier name, gets its color from red grapes. Rose wine is actually a broad category that includes different wine types such as sparkling wines and even Champagne. A very few rose wines are actually a combination of finished or near-finished red and white wines; much more common are rose wines produced by adding red grape juice made from the grape skins.

Color Correction

• Different pink sangrias call for different kinds of rose wines. One quick and simple pink sangria with white Zinfandel only has a handful of ingredients: strawberries, frozen lemonade concentrate, pineapple juice, ginger ale and white Zinfandel. Another pink sangria with white Zinfandel that is more like traditional sangria contains fresh oranges, lemons and peaches as well as white Zinfandel, orange liqueur, peach schnapps, cinnamon sticks and club soda. Pink sangria may also be made with sparkling rose wine; one recipe calls for oranges, strawberries, raspberries, orange juice, orange liqueur and sparkling rose wine.

Second and Third Pinkies

• A few pink sangrias obtain their desired color through unusual means. Pink sangrias made with white wine may get their pinkness from the wine interacting with the rest of the ingredients. One pink sangria with white wine turns pink from grapefruit juice and pomegranates and another gets its pinkness from maraschino cherry juice. A couple of pink sangria variations leave out wine altogether. These non-alcoholic, all-ages-appropriate pink sangrias obtain their pink color from pinkish ingredients like pink lemonade, grapefruit juice or a few dashes of pomegranate or cherry juice.