Mulled wine, hypocras, whatever...
On Tuesday @dduane was looking for something in the cupboard and found an ancient, rusty tin of Mulled Wine spices right at the back. Must investigate that cupboard further; if we have the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail in there, they should be in the living-room where they can be admired...
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A couple of weeks ago we had a delivery from the splendid French on-line foodie shop Bien Manger. Since the goodies included wine and there was enough to spare for experiments, we decided to try mulling some of the red, since that tin of spices was only rusty on the outside, the inside and contents - cinnamon sticks and a bag of spice mix - was fine.
Of course me being me I couldn't just use the mix as-was, so I added half a thumb’s length of bruised ginger, 2 long peppers, 4 green cardamoms, 6 cubeb peppers, 8 whole cloves, 12 coriander seeds and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, not that, though the end result was very Christmassy... I boiled them in a generous double wineglass of water until almost all the water was gone and I had a spicy infusion, then added 2 Tbsp demerara sugar and 2 Tbsps honey, stirred well, turned the heat right down and poured in 750 ml of red wine. As soon as there was a hint of bubbles at the edge I moved the saucepan off the burner, put a lid on and waited for 10 mins, then strained some into cups and the rest into a bottle.
Tasted cool next day, it had a flavour like descriptions of medieval hippocras, which is appropriate for a scene I’m writing right now :-> DD informs me it’s also great over ice as a spritzer with sparkling water and a slice of lemon.
The hot stuff went down a treat, tasting rather like “Norfolk Punch” but with a bit more kick. Mint might be an interesting addition, because we do have mint. Boy, do we have mint. I know, because I’ve been cutting it back from around the front door. With a sabre.
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Next time: mulled white wine. We had that some years back in the Munich Christmas Market (a regional thing? a vendor thing? I don’t know) and it was excellent, tangier than red Gluhwein because of sliced lemons and more fresh ginger than the small amount I used, also hotter because of chopped chillis and cracked black pepper tied up in muslin as a fierce teabag; I’m sure of the ingredients because I watched them being replenished.
We never had that version cool on-site - there was snow on the ground and in the air, so we didn’t want to! - but it’s another experiment for home...
