Brandy Sangaree

A historical wine-fortified cocktail blending brandy with port wine, sugar, and nutmeg - the name derives from sangre, Spanish for blood.

The Brandy Sangaree is a Colonial American drink that preserves the flavor logic of a family of wine-and-spirit preparations popular across the Atlantic world in the 17th and 18th centuries. The word sangaree derives from the Spanish sangría, itself from the Latin sanguis (blood), referring to the wine's color, and the format traveled to the British colonies from Spain through the Caribbean trade routes that connected English, Spanish, and Dutch commercial networks. In American Colonial usage, the Sangaree was a serving of wine or spirits — frequently Madeira, port, brandy, or rum — sweetened with sugar, diluted with water, and spiced with nutmeg, served either cold or warm depending on the season. The nutmeg garnish was a consistent identifier of the Sangaree across multiple spirit and wine bases, and its ubiquity in Colonial American drink culture reflected the dominance of the nutmeg trade in Atlantic commerce: the Dutch East India Company's monopoly on nutmeg from the Banda Islands was one of the most commercially significant trade relationships of the 17th century. The brandy Sangaree occupied the more elevated end of the Colonial drink spectrum: brandy was more expensive and more prestigious than rum, and serving a brandy Sangaree communicated social standing. The format appeared in American tavern records and household accounts through the 18th century and in early bartending guides through the 19th, gradually yielding to more specifically American cocktail formats as the country developed its own drinks traditions.