{"id":1025,"date":"2009-12-03T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2009-12-03T06:00:45","modified_gmt":"2009-12-03T13:00:45","slug":"mulled-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/03\/mulled-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"Mulled Wine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:right; margin-left:2em;\" >\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\namazon_ad_tag=\"mulledwine-20\"; \namazon_ad_width=\"180\"; \namazon_ad_height=\"150\"; \namazon_color_background=\"EDEDED\"; \namazon_color_border=\"265E15\"; \namazon_color_logo=\"FFFFFF\"; \namazon_color_link=\"265E15\"; \namazon_ad_logo=\"hide\"; \namazon_ad_title=\"Mulled Wine Store\"; \/\/--><\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/s\/asw.js\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>Adding sweeteners and spices to wine then serving it hot &#8211; sounds a bit like herbal tea with alcohol, doesn&#8217;t it? &#8211; was something I never understood. I&#8217;m giving it another look this Christmas season because I happen to like herbal tea, it&#8217;s something new (to me anyway), and I&#8217;ve got some bland wine that I don&#8217;t know what to do with. I was excited when I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/27\/produce-department-chablis\/\">made wine from supermarket grapes<\/a>, but in the end I didn&#8217;t want to drink it. Sweetening didn&#8217;t help, but maybe mulling will.<\/p>\n<h2>Mulling Spices<\/h2>\n<p>In researching mulled wine (in cookbooks, Wikipedia, search engines, my Mom), the same ingredients keep coming up:<\/p>\n<table width=\"90%\">\n<tr style=\"font-weight:bold;\">\n<td style=\"text-align:right;padding-right:1em;\">Ingredient<\/td>\n<td>Amount per Bottle of Wine<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align:right;padding-right:1em;\">cinnamon<\/td>\n<td>1-2 sticks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align:right;padding-right:1em;\">cloves<\/td>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align:right;padding-right:1em;\">citris (juice and\/or zest)<\/td>\n<td>from half an orange or one lemon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align:right;padding-right:1em;\">sugar or honey<\/td>\n<td>about half a cup<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>Also common are vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, and cardamon. You sometimes see pepper, peppercorns, nuts, and raisins too.<\/p>\n<h2>Making Mulled Wine<\/h2>\n<p>Dissolved sugar or honey in water (about half a cup to a cup &#8211; enough to dissolve and cover everything, but no more), bring to a boil, take off heat, add spices, and cover. If using citrus juice, use a little more sugar\/honey and a little less water. Let sit on low heat for about 20 minutes. Strain and add wine. Heat the combined mixture (but don&#8217;t boil) and serve hot.<\/p>\n<p>This ought to work just as well with mead or cider &#8211; maybe even beer.<\/p>\n<p>You can omit the water and stir everything into the wine, then heat the wine &#8211; I&#8217;ve seen recipes take either approach. I prefer to do the dissolving and extraction separately to guard against boiling the wine.<\/p>\n<p>Straining out the spices might be easier if you use a tea bag or tea ball.<\/p>\n<p>Citrus juice might help by adding flavor if your wine is bland. If you&#8217;re going to be zesting, for mulled wine or anything else, a dedicated zesting tool is a godsend.<\/p>\n<h2>Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;m excited about making mulled wine this year. I haven&#8217;t decided on a commercial mix or making it from scratch &#8211; maybe I&#8217;ll try both. I&#8217;d love to hear about your experiences with mulled wine &#8211; triumphs, disasters, better methods. If you&#8217;re having trouble finding supplies, check out my new <a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/mulledwine-20\">mulled wine store<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><\/p>\n<h2>Update 12\/13\/2010 &#8211; A great eggnog recipe!<\/h2>\n<p>Eggnog is another tasty treat for the holidays, and this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/13\/eggnog\/\">eggnog recipe<\/a> won&#8217;t disappoint!<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mulled wine: just the thing on a cold night, a Christmas tradition, and just possibly a way to rescue my wine from store-bought grapes. Here&#8217;s how I plan to make it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,34,36],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes","category-tasting","category-troubleshooting","tag-nad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washingtonwinemaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}