How to make mulled wine at home

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Mulled wine is a traditional drink that accompanies all the winter holidays in Europe, served at every ski resort and simply warming in the cold.

This hot wine cocktail comes from Germany. The original name Glühwein literally means "flaming wine". According to legends, Odin himself warmed himself with this drink.

What was the original drink?

There are a lot of ways to make mulled wine now. Almost every European tavern, from Prague to a bar in cold Ireland, has its own recipe for a warming wine cocktail. Even sunny Portugal has its own methods and recipes, and in Germany and Austria, almost every family prepares mulled wine in its own way.

But regardless of the variety of modern ways of how mulled wine is made, the recipe for the traditional, very first drink, according to legend, oncegiven to Odin remains unchanged.

The classic look consists of the following components:

• dry young red wine;
• honey;
• spices and herbs.

There was no water or sugar in the drink, which was prepared even before the arrival of the Romans in the Germanic lands. Clear proportions, of course, also did not exist.

How to make an old drink?

How to make mulled wine according to tradition? To do this, you should adhere to the following ratios:

• 150ml wine;
• tablespoon of honey;
• a teaspoon of spices and dried herbs.

It is not known exactly which spices and herbs were used. But it is believed that they were cloves and thyme. There is a hypothesis that hops and heather were used in the first recipes. It is based on an Irish epic that has been preserved in which it was mentioned about the drink warming the insides used by the Vikings. Considering that the song with this passage was passed down orally for more than one generation, the authenticity of the recipe remains highly controversial.

How is cooking now?

There are no uniform requirements in the modern bar world about how to make mulled wine. This drink is considered a wine cocktail, that is, each bartender can add something from himself to the recipe. However, this does not mean at all that nothing is unshakable.

How to make red wine mulled wine on Christmas winter days? This technique is quite conservative and has not changed for several years.centuries. It is this drink that is considered a classic today.

To create it you will need the following ingredients:

• wine (dry red) – liter;
• water - 200 ml;
• clove buds - 8-9 pieces;
• nutmeg (mashed) - on the tip of a knife;
• sugar - 2-2.5 tablespoons;
• cinnamon - a stick or two;
• ginger (chopped) - 4-5 circles;
• orange - one large or a couple of medium ones.

These are the ingredients that make up the hot wine sold at Christmas in every European square. The traditional recipe for making mulled wine has not changed since the 13th century.

How to cook?

In order to pamper yourself and loved ones with hot wine in cold weather, you don’t need to go to a bar or restaurant at all. You can make mulled wine at home without any special expenses, as this drink does not imply the presence of expensive or rare ingredients.

Inspiration and availability required for cooking:

• knife;
• two enamelled or steel containers;
• spoons;
• chopping board;
• ladle.

Of course, a stove will also be needed. If we are talking about how to make mulled wine at home, while in the country, then you will need a garden kitchen. A portable tile is fine too.

Oranges should be cut and placed in a saucepan or any other dish. Pour in water, bring to a boil and simmer covered for 10 to 20 minutes. Before removing from heat, add sugar, cloves, cinnamon sticks and ginger. Close everything with a lid and let stand for at least 20 minutes. Do not peel the orange.

This is a kind of blank. While the "orange broth" is infused, dry spices swell in it, you should start making wine.

The wine needs to be heated in the second saucepan. There are no tricks in this, but it is important not to allow the liquid to boil. Boiling spoils the taste, or rather, completely changes it and destroys the useful warming qualities of the cocktail. Accordingly, strong fires that heat the contents unevenly should be avoided.

When the wine is half hot, that is, reaches a temperature of 40-50 degrees, you need to add "orange broth" with spices and nutmeg to it. Everything should be mixed and warmed up well. The main thing is not to let the drink start to boil.

The finished wine needs to brew under the lid for about 10-20 minutes. During this time, the orange pieces and other components will settle, so you do not need to pour or strain anything.

The wine is poured into large thick-walled mugs, which helps to keep the drink hot for a long time.

The process of making hot wine cocktails never changes, no matter what ingredients are mentioned in the recipe. The technology is always the same, the main thing in it is to prevent the wine from boiling.

How to maintain the temperature?

People who visited European cities on Christmas could not help but notice that at the festive fairs mulled wine is poured from large vats, under which the fire is constantly burning.

This simple technique is needed to ensure that the drink always remains hot. However, it is quite difficult to repeat this in an apartment or in a country house. Making mulled wine at home is easy, but maintaining its temperature is much more difficult.

Even the weakest fire of a gas burner or an electric hob will sooner or later bring the wine to a boil. This is due to the fact that the volume of finished mulled wine is much less than in street vats, but the air temperature in the kitchen is several times higher.

When preparing a drink in the country in the outdoor garden kitchen for the whole company and in a large volume, keeping the wine hot in this way is quite acceptable.

It is worth considering one point - the wine must be closed. Heating with open dishes, of course, will reduce the risk of boiling, but will lead to a process that is no less dangerous for taste - evaporation.

How to make a cold drink?

Mulled wine is often used as a prophylactic and therapeutic agent that effectively fights against any type of colds and tones up the body's own forces. What kind of wine is better to make this version of the drink? What to add to it? These questions have sparked debate over the years.

It is optimal to use young blended dry red wine, but the rest of the ingredients are a matter of taste and having them on hand.

A good drink that effectively treats a runny nose, eliminates fever and cough, and also warms after hypothermia,is a wine made according to an old Austrian recipe.

You will need the following ingredients:

• honey;
• dry apples;
• orange peel;
• clove buds;
• thyme and nutmeg on the tip of a knife;
• allspice and black pepper;
• ginger;
• water;
• wine.

For a liter of wine, you will need to take up to 0.5 liters of water, a couple of large tablespoons of honey and the same amount of orange peels, as well as 6-8 peppercorns of each type, 8-9 cloves buds, a small chopped ginger root. The number of apples depends on their size. As a rule, when dried in a quartered form, 10-12 such slices are needed.

All dry ingredients are steamed in water, honey is added, then mixed with hot wine and heated.

Cook only with dry red?

In the modern bar world, there are two answers to the question of what kind of wine mulled wine is made from - dry red or any.

The traditional drink is made only from red and necessarily dry wines, but modern versions of this cocktail are made from any. There are no restrictions if you follow the correct technology for its preparation.

Can technology be changed?

The technology of its creation also has its own nuances. Although conservative-minded bartenders believe that cocktails made in violation of the rules of preparation can no longer be attributed to mulled wine.

For example, steamed. Its essence is that the drink is prepared without water, dry spices and a stove, but with the help ofcappuccinatore. All the spices you need are either pre-soaked, that is, brewed like regular tea, or replaced with syrups. Wine and additives are whipped with a cappuccinatore of a conventional coffee machine, after which the drink can be served immediately.

This cooking method originated in the Alps in the 1980s. There was a small weather cataclysm, that is, it became sharply and very cold. In one of the small coffee houses, which initially focused on coffee, chocolate and desserts in its assortment, there were a lot of visitors, and they all demanded mulled wine. Of course, the staff was “sewn up” and did not have time to do anything. In his hearts, the barista poured wine, liquor and something else into the container, put the mixture under the cappuccinatore and gave it to the visitor. I liked the cocktail so much that I had to repeat it. The whole evening the coffee house worked in this way, and subsequently the technique spread, finding both its admirers and fierce opponents.

Do they cook with white?

Is mulled wine made from white wine? Many people, when they hear this question, answer it in the negative, but in fact it is not.

Recipes for making hot white wine are at least as old as descriptions of how to use red. Only the geography differs - hot white wine appeared much south of the red cocktail, Macedonia is considered to be its homeland.

Technologically, the drink is prepared similarly to red mulled wine. That is, boiling is not allowed, spices and additives are prepared separately and poured into the wine. The only difference ismore water is traditionally taken. If the Greeks diluted simple wine in antiquity 1:1, then for hot wine in the oldest recipes a ratio of 1:2 was used.

How to make a white wine drink?

To make hot wine according to the ancient Macedonian recipe, you will need the following ingredients:

• oregano;
• cumin;
• white pepper;
• rosemary;
• carnation;
• cardamom.

All spices should be taken in equal amounts, so they create a harmonious taste, so none of them should prevail. For example, if cloves are clearly felt, but cumin is not felt, then the proportion is not quite right. Such errors sometimes occur when using ready-made spices of different ages. When buying seasoning bags, pay attention to the production date.

Spices are brewed like simple tea. This is very convenient, as you can taste them and adjust the taste if necessary.

It is necessary to use dry white wine in the traditional version, but sweet varieties can also be taken. For a liter of wine you will need 0.5 liters of infusion of spices. The mixture warms up and is drunk immediately.

How to make mixed mulled wine?

Hot wine is a traditional Christmas drink, the same holiday calling card as Santa Claus and his reindeer.

However, festive Europe is not only about street fairs, sales in stores, gingerbread and other attributes of a bourgeois family holiday. Youth celebrate the holidaysomewhat different, usually in clubs. Of course, not a single bar counter can do these days without Christmas specifics.

Traditional hot wine is boring. But it’s not entirely right to leave traditions on such days. In one of the American clubs, they approached the issue thoroughly, wondering what kind of wine is used to make mulled wine. And it was this nuance that the bartenders changed, leaving the rest of the recipe untouched.

Mixed mulled wine originated in Manhattan, and to make it you need at least three varieties of dry wine - white, red and rosé. However, there may be more species, and a combination of different sweetness is also allowed. The only requirement is that all wines are taken in the same volume. So, if 100 ml of dry red is available, then the rest of the wines should be taken in 100 ml each. Otherwise, the fantasy is not limited by anything, and the cooking technology does not differ from the usual one.