Fucking Badass Sangria

Ingredients
1 standard size bottle of Merlot
Sweet and sour mix
Sugar
1 Mango
Lemons
Limes
1 Orange
Cherries (in a jar)
Can of crushed pineapple
Sprite

Sangria. It means bloody in Spanish. It's also incredibly fucking tasty. Every year I have a "cocktail of summer" (last year it was the mojito) and, while sangria isn't really a cocktail, it's the selection for this year. It's my fucking tradition, so I do what I want.
Sangria is pretty simple, actually: red wine (or white wine if you're making sangria blanco), fresh fruit, something to add a bit of sweetness, and either brandy or soda. So long as you stick with this simple formula, you can really do whatever you want. Want to use kiwis, grapefruit, and tangerines? Go for it. Honey to sweeten? Shine on you crazy fucking diamond. It's so simple that it must have been invented by drunk people. Like, legitimately drunk people. Just sitting around the hacienda one day, completely shit housed, and someone says, "Dude, let's take all the wine... mix it with all the fruit... some other shit from the cabinet... then, like, fuckin' let it sit there for a while." Drunk brilliance is really the best kind of brilliance.

Why not Just Buy a Bottle of Sangria?
Because fuck you, that's why. Also, homemade sangria tastes ten times better than sangria from a bottle. Not to say I haven't bought a bottle or two in my time, but when I can make it from scratch, I do. Here's my recipe.

Motherfucking Booze Time: Brandy

 There's a fuck load of science involved in allowing you to get shithoused at the bar on Friday night. Despite this, people have been creating alcoholic drinks since damn near the dawn of time. Fermentation was one of the first chemical reactions mankind figured out how to control. That puts making booze in the same class as making fire. This is some fucking fundamental stuff.
The difference between the method for making wine and the method for making whisky is essentially the same as the difference between baking and frying. There is, however, a sort of hybrid between the two that you've probably heard of.

What the Fuck is Brandy?
To understand what brandy is you need to understand the difference between fermentation and distillation. Fermentation is simple: yeast interacts with sugar to produce ethanol, which gets you drunk. Many popular alcohols are made in this way, including beer (fermented starches ranging from barley to rice), wine (fermented grapes), and mead (fermented honey). Distillation is the process by which you concentrate alcohol and other good bits from a fermented mixture. This is how you get rum (distilled sugar), whisky (distilled starches), and tequila (distilled blue agave). Basically, fermentation makes it alcoholic while distilling makes it super alcoholic.
So, finally answering the fucking question: Brandy is distilled wine. Basically, it's like whisky made with grapes. It tastes very earthy and smokey, like a good scotch, but with an undeniable sweetness. It isn't for the amateur drinker, no matter what Young Jeezy would have you believe.