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I want to make a few little gifts for some friends, and I had the idea of creating little bottles of all the things needed for different drinks. I was hoping that people would be able to hold on to these until they wanted to make them. So far I have mulled wine.

I want to include a recipe and the ingredients for a homemade Sangria. I was wondering if I could replace the normal fresh fruit normally found with freeze-dried fruit instead.

Any help or other ideas would be much appreciated!

Luciano
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NeuroWinter
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    There's plenty of dried fruit but not so much freeze dried, are you intentionally leaving normally dried fruit out of your question? – GdD Jul 10 '19 at 11:59
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    @GdD freeze dried fruit is usually much more porous, and reconstitutable. A hunk of regularly dried fruit in wine definitely won't take on as much wine and won't impart as much flavor – Sdarb Jul 10 '19 at 18:06

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It depends on the fruit you use and whether you mind exactly how the end result turns out! freeze dried normally means berries, but they will turn to mush as they rehydrate, which is fine if you put some in a glass and drink quickly, but not good if you want them in a jug to soak up all the wine.

From personal experience, I find frozen(rather than freeze dried) oranges, apples , lemons etc work well as they stay structured, but I'd always go for fresh berries.

GdD
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Gamora
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    You may be getting freezing and freeze drying confused. Freeze drying results in a product that is dried, not frozen, so freeze dried fruits would rehydrate, not thaw. – GdD Jul 10 '19 at 11:58
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    I'm aware between the difference, hence the two separate paragraphs, one answering the question and the second offering a better solution. Freeze drying will still damage the integrity of the fruit though, in a similar way to freezing. Please see [this wiki article which has a section on fruit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeze-drying) – Gamora Jul 10 '19 at 12:01
  • I have added an extra line to point out the fact that my second sentence is referencing something different. – Gamora Jul 10 '19 at 12:02
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    *freeze dried normally means berries, but they will turn to mush as they defrost*, clearly confuses the two, hence my comment. – GdD Jul 10 '19 at 12:03
  • Apologies, I have just misspoken there, have now made the edit – Gamora Jul 10 '19 at 12:04
  • Makes good sense now @Bee. When you make sangria you often intentionally muddle the fruit to get the flavors out, so fruit turning to mush may not be a problem depending on the type of sangria being made. Flavor-wise how do dried/freeze-dried fruits compare to fresh? – GdD Jul 10 '19 at 12:08
  • AH that's not how I make it at all, hence mentioning it was depended on OPs preference in results. Generally freeze drying shouldn't change the flavour – Gamora Jul 10 '19 at 12:19