Who said it’s too late in the season to enjoy an ice cold boozy popsicle? There are still plenty of warm days to come! Not to mention, sangria is good year round. This particular recipe is not overly sweet and does not rely on sugary additives. It is a wine-lovers sangria! It relies on the flavor of wine and the sweetness of strawberries. Add this to your gathering, whether it’s a bridal shower, a backyard barbecue or even a baby shower. It is especially refreshing for those hot days at the end of summer! Makes 15 pops.

A couple of pro tips before you start:
– Use a good pinot gris, there are not enough ingredients in these pops to mask a flavor of wine you don’t like! I like 14 Hands and Chateau Ste. Michelle.
– St-Germain is perhaps the most recognizable brand of elderflower liqueur. Even though St-Germain is wonderful, there are good alternatives that might be a little lighter on the wallet. I used JDK&Sons Elderflower Liqueur in mine.
– This recipe will make about 15 pops using pouches that hold 3 fluid ounces. I used these.
– I would plan on each guest having two (the equivalent to a glass of wine).
– I noticed that the seal on the pouches made it difficult to get the fruit out after they were frozen. I snipped off the seal when I was ready to enjoy my frozen pop and it worked perfectly.

Ingredients:
750 ML bottle pinot gris
1 cup elderflower liqueur, more to personal taste
15 ounces fresh strawberries, plus 6-7 strawberries
60 fresh blueberries (about 2/3 cup), rinsed and dried
15 ice pop pouches

Directions:
1. Prepare the strawberries by washing them and cutting off their stems. Place 15 ounces of the strawberries into a blender or food processor, process on high until smooth. Adding a bit of wine during this step can help loosen up those strawberries and enable your appliance to liquefy them!
2. Add wine and elderflower liqueur to the strawberries and pulse until combined.
3. Strain mixture into a separate medium-sized bowl with a spout, then pour some of the strained liquid into a smaller vessel with a spout, such as a Pyrex measuring cup. This will make for easier pouring into the pouches. Set both aside.
4. Chop the additional strawberries into small pieces.
5. Take an ice pop pouch, add about 4 blueberries and half a tablespoon of the chopped strawberries. You want about a tablespoon or so of fruit total per pouch.
6. Pour the strained wine mixture up to the fill line of the pouch. If it doesn’t have one, leave about an inch of room at the top to allow enough room to seal it.
7. Lay the pouch flat onto a sheet pan. Run your finger along the pouch to disperse the fruit. The blueberries will want to sink to the bottom and the strawberries to the top but if you work them a bit, they’ll disperse throughout the pouch.
*At this point, if you have a kitchen scale, weigh your first finished pouch. If it weighs in at about 3 ounces, you are on track to get 15 pops.
8. Continue this process with the rest of the pouches, laying them all flat on the sheet pan. This will make it easier to transport them to the freezer without having the fruit re-disperse to opposite ends of the pouch.
9. Place the pouches with the sheet pan into the freezer. After an hour, they should be slushy. After 2 hours, they should be frozen. These times will vary depending on the temperature of your freezer.
10. Once they are frozen, you can remove them from the sheet pan and store them in the freezer. The sealed part of the pouches should remain elevated. Even though these freeze well, after a while some of the liquid might leak down through the seal. I put them in a gallon sized baggie and stood them upright at the back of my freezer!

Enjoy!