The Biggest Mistake To Avoid When Setting Up A Sangria Bar

Sangria is the ultimate crowd-pleaser: It upgrades the joy of wine with spirits or liqueurs, plus a burst of fruit flavors. And with so many options for different twists, from red sangria with orange liqueur to white sangria with limoncello to rosé sangria with gin, there's truly something for everyone. Setting up a sangria bar is a guaranteed victory for your next gathering. You can make batches ahead of time so you're not stuck making individual drinks all day, and you can put out all kinds of fruit, fixings, and accompanying snacks to appeal to the palates of everyone invited. You just have to know a few things for sangria bar success, and the most important mistake to avoid is adding ice to the pitchers you put out.

"Have the base sangrias in pitchers ready to go," advises Muddling Memories cofounder Camille Goldstein. "DO NOT add ice to the pitchers. If you add ice to the pitchers, the sangria will be watered down as the ice starts to melt. Make the batch and put it in the fridge to chill." To keep the drinks colder, Goldstein suggests, "Have glassware and ice available for guests to serve themselves." You can't know how long it will take for pitchers to be emptied out by guests, and any time that the sangria spends sitting around with ice, it gets diluted and watery. By following Goldstein's advice, you ensure cool yet fully flavored sangria.

Ice must dilute a little to effectively chill any drink, and some level of dilution is a positive in cocktails like sangria — it subtly softens more intense alcohol flavors as well as the alcohol content itself and helps marry different complex flavors in any recipe. But the amount of time you want for the ideal amount of dilution is about the time it takes to actually enjoy the drink, which is why it's a perfect solution to provide guests with ice that they can add to their sangria in the moment. Otherwise, you'll lose the rich wine and bright fruit flavors of the drink as it gets watery in the pitcher.

For other things to put on your sangria bar aside from the ice and glassware, Goldstein advises that you offer guests all different kinds of sangria — red, white, and rosé — in order to achieve that crowd-pleasing effect. Plus, you can set out more cut fruits beyond what you used in the sangria, so that guests can garnish and get creative. You can provide the classic foundation of red sangria with oranges and apples, and your guests can pop in raspberries, dark cherries, or pears, for example. You can even set out herbs if you have super fresh ones — mint leaves would be extra refreshing with white sangria and peaches.