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 British cheese industry, you could opt for The Cheese Bar’s Fondue It Yourself kit (£28 for two, thecheesebar.com) which contains 300g of a mix of Coolea, a Gouda-style cheese with a real sweetness, and Cornish Kern, the closest thing you’ll get to something like comté or beaufort with nutty, savoury flavours.
You’ll also get everything else you need — 100ml of white wine, half a lemon, a bit of garlic and some nutmeg for the mixture, and some potatoes, bread and cornichons.
‘You don’t need a fondue kit, you can just use a regular pan,’ says The Cheese Bar’s 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.