Plonk rawks...

when you make it into sangria! I had a couple of pretty harsh bottles of homebrew to deal with following a visit from a friend who works - guess where? - at a homebrew place. Of course, he had brought the bottles in order to get me to see if I could taste the difference between a cold-stabilized wine and one which had not been cold-stabilized. The answer to that question is a thunderous yes. Cold stabilization certainly took the mouth-rending, acidic edge off the homebrew. At any rate, no one wanted to drink the last two bottles, so I went ahead and did this to them:

Ingredients:
2 bottles plonky homebrew
2 oranges
1 kiwi
1 apple
1 cup lychee juice
1 cup orange juice
1/2 can soda water
1/2 cup sugar

Method:
Wash all fruit thoroughly. Peel one orange, and plonk all the separate slices into a large punch bowl. Cut the other orange in half, and squeeze the juice out into the bowl, allowing some of the pulp to fall in. Dig out the kiwi, chop it up roughly and chuck it in with the orange. Slice and core the apple - you can leave the skin on - and pitch this in as well. In a separate container, mix the sugar with 1/2 cup of the wine, and stir until the sugar is dissoved. Add a little more wine if needed to completely dissolve the sugar. Add the the wine syrup to the punch bowl. Now add the rest of that first bottle of wine, and stir. Then add all the remaining liquid ingredients, stirring very well as you go. Put the whole thing in the fridge for a couple of hours, (It's even better and fruiter the second day!) and serve in tall glasses over ice, with orange and/or apple slices at the bottom. A mint or lemon balm leaf to garnish wouldn't hurt either. Enjoy!