THE APRES SKI

Glug some gluhwein

WHILE you might not be up for dancing on tables in your ski boots these days, most skiers admit that very little tastes as good as that first glass of vin chaud/gluhwein or stein of lager after you come off the mountain.

For the ultimate in gluhwein recipes, I turned to the Hotel Bündnerhof in Davos, where by 4pm in a normal ski season they’ve already sold about 50 pints of the stuff. They use a hearty Swiss Merlot but any punchy red wine will do. To each bottle of red they add 50g of brown sugar, an orange halved and sliced, a cinnamon stick, two cloves, two star anise, three cardamom pods and a pinch of nutmeg.

Make some noise!

FOR an authentic doof-doof soundtrack, head to Spotify where you’ll find playlists from all of the iconic apres spots, whether you favour La Folie Douce’s many French outposts, St Anton’s Mooserwirt, Farinet in Verbier, The Ronnie in Meribel or Cocorico in Val d’Isere. And the bonus is, there’s no danger of anyone throwing red wine into your helmet in the crush for the bar.

FIY (Fondue It Yourself)

SADLY there are no chalet staff waiting to serve you a slap-up three course meal but a fondue is a super easy — and very authentic — option. Exactly which cheeses should go into it is debatable, but if you want to support the Irish cheese industry, you could opt for Sheridans Cheesemongers Fondue Cheese & Wine NIght kit (from €19.25, sheridanscheesemongers.com) which contains 250g of Emmental cheese and 250g of Gruyere cheese. This can be teamed with a bottle of Paul Ginglinger Riesling which you drink alongside or add 100ml to the cheese to really capture that Alpine spirit.

‘You don’t need a fondue kit, you can just use a regular pan,’ says cheese expert Mathew Carver. ‘My top tip is not to let it boil as then you destroy the proteins that give you that stringy fondue. Heat the wine, when that starts to boil, reduce the heat, whisk in the cheese and, if it does start to split, pull it back together with a bit of cornflour dissolved in water.’

And after all that, it’s just a short stumble to your own bed (not some ridiculously narrow single chalet bed.) While nobody’s going to give you a cooked breakfast in the morning, there’s also no pressure to get up to race for the first lifts either.