Ingredient of the Week

Mulled wine & cider

If you’re keen to get the festive fun underway, then making a batch or two of this week’s mulled wine or cider will get you in the mood.

The gentle warming of the alcohol and spices will fill your home with the heady smells of Christmas.

Mulled wine seems to have originated from the Romans in the second century – they heated their wine with herbs and spices available to them from their ever-growing empire to defend them from the cold. As the Roman Empire moved north through Europe, so did their love of mulled wine and was eagerly adopted by their new subjects who also felt that it promoted health and well-being.

Apparently, aside from its supposed health giving properties it conveniently sweetened and added flavour to unpalatable or poor-quality wine and this practice continued up to and including the Middle Ages.

Mulled wine seemed to fall out of favour in Europe but it continued to grow in popularity in Sweden due their Royal family’s love of the spiced concoction. From then it became associated with Christmas as wine merchants would sell their own blends of what they called ‘glogg’.

In the early 1900s, with the commercialism of Christmas, mulled wine or glogg became a festive staple. Most European countries have their own delicious variations on mulled drinks especially on slope-side cabins in ski resorts where warm spiced wines and ciders continue to warm hands and bodies long after Christmas. Enjoy.