Christmas Mulled Wine

It’s that time of year again…mince pies, warm fires, party hats and lots of mulled wine.  Having friends over for dinner can be a daunting prospect, but at Christmas time you can invite all your friends and family very easily by having mulled wine with a few nibbly foods which you can pass to your friends to hand around.  Great party foods are guacamole or salsa dips, roasted nuts and seeds, and crackers with a small bit of smoked salmon or hummus.  What can be more straightforward?  Well, one thing can be and that’s mulled wine!  It’s soooooo easy and always loved, and for those driving, use good quality apple juice instead of red wine.  2 pots.  Not a bother!

There is no set recipe for mulled wine; just lots of variations, so as long as you get the wine, sugar and some spices you’ll be doing grand.  Here is something to go by, (with some other options underneath)…

Put 4ozs (110g) sugar into a stainless steel saucepan.  Pour 1 bottle of red wine into the sugar (or 10 bottles of wine, but multiply the rest of the recipe by 10!), along with thinly grated lemon zest, a small piece of cinnamon bark, a blade of mace and 1 clove. Heat it slowly over a gentle heat, stirring it gently to help dissolve the sugar.  Don’t let it boil but when it gets warm/hot pour it into a warmed jug, and then pour into wine glasses.  Very elegant and no hassle!

If the idea of 10 bottles of wine seems too expensive for you, or if you don’t want your friends to get too drunk (!) do 5 bottles of wine and 5 of orange juice, you could always give it a bit of a pick-me-up with a drop of whiskey!  I often throw in a tablespoon or 2 of coriander seeds, the same of cloves and lots of cinnamon bark.  Slicing an orange and/or lemon horizontally into 7-8 rings also puts wonderful flavour in the mulled wine.  Of course if you do all this you may need to sieve it before you serve it – but that’s fine just use a tea-strainer.  As I mentioned before, all these spices are delicious with hot apple juice.  And just so you know, you can buy all these mulled wine spices ready packaged in sachets to pop into the pot, now that really couldn’t be easier!  Have Fun and Happy Entertaining!