Best 4 Portuguese Port Wine Cocktail Recipes

It’s Wine Wednesday! And since we’re featuring Portugal this week, we’re featuring one of our favorites, cocktails with port wine (or Porto). Port is actually a fortified wine, which means it is produced with the addition of alcohol (a neutral grape spirit called aguardente) during fermentation. This stops the fermentation and results in more sugars being left in the wine.

Port is therefore usually a sweet wine and is served mostly as a dessert wine or digestif, although drier varieties do exist. The two most common types of Port are “Ruby” Port, which is not aged in wood, thereby preserving the ruby red color, and “Tawny” Port, which is aged in wooden barriques, creating a more golden-brown color.

So besides serving it with dessert, what is Port good for? It makes excellent port cocktails! And while I personally usually like the nuttiness of a Tawny Port, in port wine cocktails Ruby Port’s color makes a spectacular looking beverage!