Besides sangria recipes, autumn is reminiscent of so many things, like the changing of the leaves on the trees and the chill in the air that people inexplicably describe as crisp, but I’ve yet to understand why. There are elaborate Halloween decorations outside homes (that started appearing in August this year,) trick-or-treating, jack-o-lanterns, and scary movies, and that’s all just the month of October. Then we move into November, when the deep autumn begins just as daylight saving time ends. It’s colder now, darker, blustery. Christmas music is playing in all the stores, and the more exuberant exhibitionists are replacing their 12’ tall skeletons, their inflatable Oogie Boogie’s, and their orange string lights with Christmas-themed 12’ tall skeletons in Santa hats, Christmas inflatable Oogie Boogie’s in Santa hats, and multi-colored lights. Christmas is still six weeks out, though, and barely on my radar. 

The crown jewel of the “holiday season” for me is Thanksgiving. When I think of Autumn, I think of spending a long weekend with family, talking, drinking, and, of course, eating. In fact, most of my autumnal warm fuzzies revolve around food. As Thanksgiving draws near, I hear people groan about turkey. I suspect these people have never had deep-fried turkey or, as I discovered last year, smoked turkey, for if they had, I believe they’d change their tune. And then there are all of the glorious side dishes: mashed potatoes, au gratin potatoes, green bean casserole, and glorious, glorious rolls for those who have not yet been cursed with an inability to process gluten. 

We’re Getting To The Sangria Recipe

Of course, a holiday meal with family wouldn’t be complete without booze. Unless that is, you’re Bonnie’s side of the family. Mormons. Amiright? Beer, wine, liquor, they’re fine utilitarian, pedestrian, any time of year libations, but the holidays call for something more, something special. That is where Bonnie’s delightfully, dangerously delicious Autumn Sangria recipe comes in. The recipe is very simple and can be tweaked as necessary to suit your tastes, but why mess with a sure thing?

Remember, All This Drivel is Why You Were Able To Find This Sangria Recipe In The First Place

Bonnie has many different sangria recipes for various occasions and seasons throughout the year, and they are all equally delicious and deadly. Make no mistake, this is no beginner or even intermediate cocktail. No, this concoction is meant for seasoned alcoholics. Not the ones so far advanced that they eschew anything but straight vodka, but the ones who still drink socially and enjoy imbibing a little variety; the ones who have been at it so long that they gauge their consumption not by the glass but by the bottle.

Bonnie’s Dangerously Delicious Fall Sangria Recipe

Serving Size:

4 – 8

Time:

10 Minutes

Difficulty:

Super Easy

Ingredients

• 1 Orange
• 1 Apple
• 2 Pears
• 1 Cup Frozen Cranberries
• 1 Cup Cinnamon Whiskey
• 1 or 2 Bottles of White Wine
• Apple Cider

Directions

1. Keep the cranberries in the freezer until you’re ready to make the sangria recipe, so they will freeze and keep the drink cold without watering it down.
2. If you’re going to make your own cinnamon whiskey, you should do that ahead of time as well. Place a few cinnamon sticks in a mason jar, fill the jar with your favorite whiskey, and wait.
3. Start by cutting the fruit. Slice the oranges, and cut the apples and pears into wedges.
4. Put all of the fruit in a pitcher.
5. Pour in 1 cup of cinnamon whiskey. If you didn’t make your own, Fireball will get the job done, too.
6. Pour in 1 or 2 bottles of white wine. This is an excellent time to get rid of that bottle of Chardonnay your mom gave you for your birthday because she doesn’t know you at all.
7. Top up with apple cider. For an extra deadly batch of sangria, use hard cider.
8. Enjoy!

If you’re more of a visual person, you can watch Bonnie make her fall sangria recipe in action below.

The post Sangria Recipe To Salve The Soul This Fall appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie…

Sometimes a finished product isn’t quite so finished, and it’s up to the user to get it across the line. When I was a kid growing up in the 80s, unfinished furniture stores were big business. Evidently paint or stain was the bulk of the furniture cost back then, so it was worthwhile to buy your furniture unfinished and then take it home and finish it yourself.

These days, products are more likely to need a little help because of poor design or workmanship than someone deliberately dipping out before the job was done. Take for instance this wall-mount corkscrew I found at the Goodwill for $3. What a deal! The first time I used it, however, I got a face full of wine, and not in a conventional way. It was such a spectacular and unexpected mishap that I felt it was worthy of recreating for the world to see. Fortunately, the corkscrew sucked in a consistent and measurable way so that recreating the explosion was no trouble at all.

The problem was that the screw was pushing the cork into the bottle instead of threading itself into the cork. That was partly because the shaft needed to be lubed (that’s what she said) but mostly because there was nothing to set the bottle on. This meant that while the corkscrew was coming down, I had to push the bottle up with as much or more force than I was pushing down with the handle resulting in wine all over the kitchen and all over me.

The simple and obvious solution would have been to simply mount the corkscrew over the countertop. Fortunately for me, that isn’t possible in my kitchen because there is not enough room between the countertop and the cabinets, so I had no choice but to build a little shelf to go under the corkscrew. That’s where my Porter Cable 4216 Dovetail Jig comes in. I thought it would be cool to make the shelf with sliding dovetails on two axes.

I had never made a sliding dovetail before, and this just seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out. Plus, if it didn’t come out, no one was ever going to see it. At first, I thought it might be a little overkill to overbuild such a little shelf, but it actually needs to be quite sturdy to handle the downward force being applied as the corkscrew winds its way into the cork, so I think the sliding dovetails were the way to go here.

It’s All In The Planning

As with any project, the prep work takes 80% of the time. In this case, it was laying out my cuts and then getting the Porter Cable 4216 Dovetail Jig dialed in to make them. Once you get it, though, making your cuts goes quickly. The Porter Cable 4216 Dovetail Jig can simultaneously do the mortises and tenons for dovetails. That saves time and ensures that your dovetails fit perfectly. Unfortunately, you must cut your mortises and tenons for sliding dovetails separately.

Since this was my first time, I went slowly, taking off just a little bit of wood with each pass. My joints fit a little looser than I would have liked, but I didn’t worry about it too much since I was gluing them anyway.

Every so often, one must remind oneself of things one already knows. On this project, I was reminded of the importance of marking my pieces of wood. I measured, marked, and drilled four screw holes to align with the studs in the wall. But then, I absent-mindedly glued the piece upside down. Had the screw holes been symmetrical on the piece of wood, it would not have mattered. The screw holes, however, were not symmetrical. Of course, I didn’t discover my mistake until the glue was completely dry, so I had to drill four more holes.

Rather than trying to fill the four extra holes, badly as they would have been, I simply used eight screws and colored the heads with a brown Sharpie. Not an elegant or skillful solution, but it worked. 

Was It Worthwhile to Use Porter Cable 4216 Dovetail Jig For Such a Simple Project?

Now I have a very sturdy little shelf mounted under my corkscrew. Between it and a little grease on the corkscrew shaft, I now have a functioning bottle opener. It cost $3, and I got the wood for free. Factoring in the cost of the router and the Porter Cable 4216 Dovetail Jig I’m deep in the hole. I would have been better off buying a brand-new corkscrew than going this route. Of course, the shelf’s cost will amortize as I make more dovetails, so I’m confident that in the near future, I’ll be back in the black again. I made a video of the whole project, including the reenactment of the wine explosion. You can see it at that link or at the end of this post. Happy making!

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My Quest For Gluten-Free Wine

Personally, I can attest to having been glutenized by wine. I have been gluten-free for a full year now with the exception of 5 accidental glutenings in the fall of 2020. (At least one of which was caused by wine.) What I have learned from those episodes is that the effects are much stronger now that I have no residual gluten in my system and if I ingest gluten now I will be sick for at least 5 hours. So I prefer not to take chances with wheat, rye, and barley.

My aversion to glutenization caused me to abstain from wine entirely for several months after one bottle got me really good. I am particularly heartbroken about it because it was my favorite wine: The Robert Mondavi Private Selection Cabernet Sovinougn – the one that’s aged in bourbon barrels.

I suspect that the bourbon barrel aging may be the source of the gluten, but I cut out all wine just to be safe until I happened upon a wine that stated right on the label that it was in fact gluten-free. That piqued my interest, and my hope, to learn if there were other winemakers pursuing a gluten-free process but I didn’t come up with much. Barefoot says all of their wines are gluten-free but that’s hard to get excited about. I also found a handful of small vintners that said their wine is gluten-free as well. But it doesn’t do me much good to know about gluten-free wines that aren’t available in my area, does it?

How The Gluten-Free Wine List Started

Once I learned that there were some safe wines out there I started trying new ones. To keep track of what I tried I started snapping a picture of the bottle and jotting down notes about whether I liked it or not in my Notes App. The result is a living list of safe wines. It’s been 7 months since I last ate or drank anything that glutenized me so I don’t know if I’m on a lucky streak or if the large majority of wines are in fact totally safe. Perhaps there are just a few hangers-on to old wine-making techniques that we, who are unable to process gluten, should avoid.

Which ever it is, I will continue to be a guinea pig and try new wines and report back to you my findings.

My List Of Gluten-Free Wines

And so without further ado here is my list of wines of which I have personally drunk at least half the bottle without glutenization. As I come across new, safe wines I will add them to the list so check back often.

1. Corte Corsano – 2018 Chianti Classico

Not good but didn’t seem to affect me.

2. Criss Cross – 2016 Petite Sirah

Not even as good as the Chianti but didn’t affect me.

3. Frei Brothers – 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon

Decent.

4.Bonterra – 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon

Just plain good. This was the first wine I took a bet on because it said Made With Organic Grapes and I thought there was a good chance it was gluten-free. I was right!

5. The Collection – 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon

Tasty. Kind of fruity for a cab.

6. Riunite – Lambrusco

Everything that you would expect from a sparkling red wine, in a magnum bottle, with a screw cap. 

7. Erath – 2018 Pinot Noir

We selected it only because when we googled what wine goes best with Mahi Mahi tacos we found that an Organ Pinot paired best with grilled Mahi Mahi. We didn’t fully appreciate how well it paired though until we ate taco leftovers later the same night with the Simi Cab and discovered that there really was something to this Pinot. And this wine is gluten-free to boot!

8. Simi – 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon

When paired with Mahi Mahi tacos the wine leaves a sort of earthy, smokey, wood aftertaste that leaves you longing for the more compatible, and significantly cheaper Erath pinot.

9. H3 – 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon

Claimed to have a cocoa finish but I didn’t get that. Also said deep berry flavors which was a spot on characterization.

10. Line 39 – 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon

For a $10 bottle of wine, Line 39 never disappoints. You’re won’t be raving to your friends about this bottle of wine is but you’re also not going to complain. 

11. Clos Du Bois – 2018 Pinot Noir

It sort of made my lips tingle and go numb. My first glass had almost no taste like drinking water but then had a grape juice finish. Not exactly what I would call award winning but by the fourth glass who’s to judge.

12. Barefoot Bubbly Brut Cuvée Champagne

For a few years, this was the king of grocery store champagne with its light, fruity, non-champagne-like taste. But in the past 1 or 2 years, the king has abdicated his throne and joined the ranks of mediocrity beside Cooks and André. But hey, it’s gluten-free wine.

13. Underwood – 2019 Pinot Noir

It had a very astringent taste and I didn’t really enjoy it but it didn’t affect me so it’s good in my book.

14. Wine Cube – Pinot Noir

I know that boxed wines have a sort of a less than classy reputation and rightly so. I would, however, argue that they play a very useful role in the life of the budget minded wine lover. You can start the evening off with your favorite, pricier bottle of wine. Then, when your taste buds are dulled, you can move on to the old reliable, and significantly less expensive box on the counter. This way you’re not wasting expensive and delicious wine that you’re not even really tasting anyway. This Wine Cube Pinot Noir fills that role nicely. It’s not bad as the first glass of the night either. I also recommend traveling wine wine cubes on road trips. They’re perfect for staying in hotels and airbnb’s because they last for days and you never need a cork screw.

15. The Naked Grape – Pinot Noir

I hate the look of this box. It reminds me of 1990’s wallpaper and smooth jazz. If Frass Canyon were a real vineyard I think they would use this design. Your mom’s douchey, new-age boyfriend, who also happens to be her supervisor at her new job that she had to take after your dad left, would buy this box because of the design. The wine inside isn’t much better. Unlike the Wine Cube, you’re definitely not going to want to start the night out with this thing. In fact, you might want to kill 2 bottles before you start slumming it for the night. The only reason I bought this box of wine was because it was marked down from $15 to $3.75. I was going for the Black Box Cab when Bonnie called me to the end cap of the aisle where 2 of these boxes were relegated. I’m glad I didn’t I have to pay $15 to find out I don’t like this wine. $3.75 is a fair price point though so if you can find it for that go ahead and feel good about picking one up.

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