I am not a big fan of chamomile so this recipe from danky at Day Recipe does not immediately cry out to me, “drink me, Chris. Driiiiiink me!” but I am sure it is very nice. However, it is made with white wine so it is immediately unique for that reason alone - even without chamomile flowers. The recipe makes a healthy, but not overindulgent, 6 servings.
2 chamomile tea bags
2 cups boiling water1 750-ml bottle chenin blanc or other semidry white wine1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup orange juice
1/4 cup light rum
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon raisins
1 tablespoon chopped mixed dried fruit
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
DIRECTIONS
Place tea bags in large glass measuring cup. Pour 2 cups boiling water over. Let stand 4 minutes. Discard tea bags.
Combine tea, wine and all remaining ingredients in medium saucepan. Stir wine mixture over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Bring mixture just to simmer. Remove from heat. Cover and let steep 20 minutes.
Rewarm wine over low heat (do not boil). Discard bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Ladle wine, raisins and dried fruit into mugs and serve.
Joel of TravelBeat.Net went to Amsterdam and tried a few of the finer spirits there, including Bruidstranen, a spiced wine popular to newly weds and commonly served at weddings.
Joel sparked my interest in Bruidstranen so I looked a little further into it and found more explanation over at “Dutch recipes for the newly weds.”
This alcoholic drink is especially for weddings although it has a strange name: Tears of the Bride. The gold and silver leaves mean: the smell of roses and moonshine. It has a scent so fine, that it is comparable with the finest perfume. This drink is served at the wedding (or, as the rumour goes: when a woman is not amused with something her husband did, she poors him a glass to remind him of the weddingfauls). It can also be a gift from the married couple to their guests.
…and, what do you know? They also have a recipe for mulled wine (”Hypocras”) there Here’s the recipe. They have some interesting history about it too but you will have to visit them for that:
Hypocras - mulled wine
500 grams / 2lb 2oz. Sugar
2 lemons
2 tsp cinnamon
4 cloves
2 pieces of mace
6 white pepper corns
1 tsp coriander
5 oranges
1 tart apple such as �goudrenet� � liter / 2 cups / 1 pint milk
2 litres / 2 qts red or white wine
Splice the cloves lengthwise and crush the pepper corns. Squeeze the two lemons and keep the juice. Dice the unpeeled, non-cored apple. Peel the oranges and keep the peels.
Mix juice, spices, peels, milk and wine in a large container and set aside to steep for at least a day, preferably longer.
Soak a large piece of cheesecloth or a good quality tea towel to use as a sieve. Put that (perhaps supported by a metal sieve or clander) over a wide-mouthed container or bottle able eventually to hold 2.5 litres (a gallon), or use smaller containers and pour the contents through a funnel into a larger one.
Celebrate your achievements in style no matter how far from home. Just add water to this mulled wine powder and voila! - mulled wine.
This mulled wine in a bag is pure genius as far as I am concerned. The powdered mulled wine is made by Trekking-Mahlzeiten, a Swiss company that makes quality outdoor gear for expeditions and camping. For those of you who read German, you can learn more about their powered mulled wine on their main site.
Unfortunately, at this time they only distribute water purification products and a few cooking devices to the US. I will be on the lookout for powdered mulled wine and let you know when it is available here - from www.Gluhwein.Net.
By my calculations, this giant gluhwein recipe from Nekochan of Food Safari will make 72 (Seventy-Two) servings. I figured that using 5 servings per 750 ml of volume but even if you use 4/bottle it still makes 57 servings of gluhwein.
Anyway, it’s enough for a party. Here’s the recipe:
GLUHWEIN
Ingredients
12 bottle red wine (Beaujolais)
1.2 liter water
0,3 liter cognac
7 pieces whole cinnamon
8 pieces of whole lemon sliced
5 pieces cardamom
4 pieces cloves
300gram sugar
Method
Add all ingredients in a suitable pot and heat up the wine. Simmer for 5 mins. and switch off the heat. Then cover the pot with a lid and keep it aside for 30 mins. DO NOT remove the lid.
Once the 30 min.are over, remove the lid and heat up the wine, till you reach nearly the boiling point before it becomes to boil strain it through a strainer.
To serve:Add one thin slice of lemon and 1-2 pieces of cinnamon stick into the glass and pour the wine over, serve it immediately.
This gluhwein recipe strikes me as a bit light on the cloves but those with sensitive palates will know the difference. Beaujolais is probably my favorite wine to use for making gluhwein because its hearty full-bodied flavor carries the spices well.
This hot apple wine recipe is a cowboy’s drink from “Fifty from the Trail: The Best Cowboy Cooking from a Timeless Land.” It is not exactly gluhwein but it is really similar so we decided to include it. In a way, it might be the most American mulled wine recipe we have seen. It even has butter in it.
Apple Wine Bowl Recipe
2 large tart apples
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup packed plus 1 Tbsp. light brown sugar, divided
1 Tbsp. butter or margarine
1 quart dry red wine
4 cardamom pods, cracked
3 whole cloves
1 1/2 inch cinnamon stick, broken
15 blanched almonds
1/2 cup raisins
Wash apples and cut away cores. Slice the apples and toss with lemon juice and place in a 2 1/2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp. brown sugar and dot with butter. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until the apples are tender.
Pour wine over apples; add cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon. Return to oven and heat - but do not boil - for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven, cover, and let stand overnight.
Line a strainer with cheesecloth and strain the wine mixture. Discard the apple pulp and spice. Add almonds, raisins, and remaining 1/2 cup of brown sugar while stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Heat - but do not boil - and serve warm with a few almonds and raisins in each glass.
Makes about 1 quart.
Let us know if you make this cowboy wine. Watch out for snakes and stay on the trail.
John Frizell of Bon Appetit (the BA Blog) waxes historical and shares his warmth with this hot spiced wine recipe that includes cognac. Give it a shot (no pun intended). I think the strangest thing about the recipe is that he suggests bringing the spiced wine to a boil, which is generally a no-no as it causes the alcohol to evaporate. What is this? Is it all about flavor now?!
Vino Caliente del Refugio (adapted from chef Marcel Oliver, Refugio del Montaña—Ushuaia, Argentina)
Juice and zest (peeled in strips) of one orange, plus extra orange juice
5 oz. brown sugar
1 750 ml. bottle Malbec (or other hearty red wine)
5 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
4 oz. cognac
Combine 1 cup orange juice and sugar in a large saucepan and stir to combine. Add wine and bring to a boil. Remove pot from heat and add cloves, cinnamon, and orange zest. Let rest for 30 minutes. Add a splash of Cognac, and strain. Reheat and serve very warm, or bottle—the wine will be better if it’s left to rest for five days or more.
MeadMadeComplicated.Org has a great explanation of how to make mead including recipes and methods. Making mead does seem to be fairly equipment-intensive, though. Here is the list of equipment on Mead Made Complicated:
2 5 gallon carboys. Use vessels made out of glass (fragile but funny: it is possible to see what is going on inside) or stainless steel. Plastic can be hard to clean but some of them seem to be usable for short periods and wood is more suitable for ageing than for fermentation,
3-4 gallon pot (enameled or stainless steel as aluminum can react in an acidic environment),
2 qt vessel for the starter,
drilled rubber stopper + air-lock (figure 3),
(thermometer to monitor temperature for sanitation of honey),
(hydrometer to measure the specific gravity (density) of the must and extrapolate the potential alcohol content),
big spoon to stir honey while it is heated (avoid wood which is porous and therefore hard to sanitize),
(pH-meter),
funnel (big enough to avoid pouring out of the carboy (it is not easy to aim when handling gallons of water)),
transparent hose made of food grade plastic,
25 75 cl bottles + corks,
measuring spoons for quantities as small as 1/4 or 1/8 tsp (tea spoon) which are common for some chemicals,
scale or equivalent to measure quantities of honey.
Whew! That’s a lot of equipment and you need to be very careful to keep everything clean but if you like making beer or wine, it might be right up your alley and you might already have a lot of the equipment anyway.
Fortunately, the only ingredients required are water, honey, and yeast.
I am sticking to gluhwein myself. If you try making mead, please let us know.
Get headaches from red wine? Think the sulfites caused it? Wine Scamp wrote a great article about what really causes wine headaches.
Current research supports the theory that biogenic amines are the culprits: this group of chemicals include histamine, seratonin, dopamine, epinephrine and tyramine, among others. Seratonin is said to trigger migraines in migraine-prone people. Histamines were thought to be the culprit, but red wine and white wines have been shown to have equal levels of histamine…
It’s a great article. Wine Scamp always has good things to share about wine topics.
Joey from The Village Voice brings us this recipe for Spiced Apple Wine, which she got from Peninsula Cellars. They seem to refer to gluhwein as if it IS spiced apple wine but that is not necessarily true - although it CAN be true.
pple flavor or not, the thing I like about this gluhwein recipe is that it uses white wine and you will not see that very often.
GLUHWEIN : SPICED APPLE WINE ~ Heart warming recipe compliments of Peninsula Cellars 1 Bottle Peninsula Cellars Apple Wine 2 cinnamon sticks 1/2 orange peel 1 apple, quartered 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
Heat to 135-degrees, hold for 30 minutes. Drink and enjoy!
Gluhwein is German mulled wine - delicious hot spiced wine usually made with red wine. Use our gluhwein mix to make it quickly and easily or browse the numerous gluhwein recipes to make it from scratch.
