My darling husband is driving me crazy this week. You see, the world around me seems to have welcomed Christmas. There are at least a dozen houses in our neighborhood with lights up. Blockbuster has their employee’s stockings hung. Starbucks is offering me eggnog lattes…and while all of this is making me very excited about the holidays, it’s turning my normally jovial husband into a big fat Grinch.
He has compared this premature celebrating of Christmas, to, among other things, giving birth to a premature Christmas. “It needs to be on a ventilator, not paraded about town.”
He says that everyone is “ruining Christmas by cheapening it” and when I tell him that the only person ruining anything for me is, in fact, him, he says “good. You’re not supposed to enjoy it now. Wait until the day after Thanksgiving.”
I say all this to preface the fact that I’m probably going to be in big trouble for doing what I’m about to share, since it’s really more of a Christmas recipe than a Thanksgiving one. But since Christmas and Thanksgiving are melting more and more into a Christgiving, I’m going full steam ahead. Bring this drink to Thanksgiving and you will be a hero. Make this drink at your Christmas party, and you’ll be shocked how quickly you run out.
The World’s Best Mulled Wine (and if you’ve never tried mulled wine, you’re going to love it that much more!)
Keep the following things in mind when making this recipe: use low heat and don’t boil the wine. If it boils, you’re burning off the alcohol and then you’ll never get to watch your sister-in-law fall off her chair.
2/3 cup of sugar (most of my favorite recipes start off with this ingredient)
750ml of wine (that’s either one of those tacky giant bottle or two regular bottles. merlot and zinfandel come recommended. it doesn’t need to be super fancy and expensive, but during heating the flavors will concentrate, so don’t get completely crappy wine.)
1/2 cup of brandy
12 cloves (or more–I go kinda clove crazy)
1 cinnamon stick (or 6…again, I go cinnamon crazy. But I have heard from a very smart German that cinnamon is a unique thing about American cooking, so I think it’s your patriotic duty to use a lot of it.)
1/2 of an orange peel (remember NOT to grate it–one long piece is better, or your mulled wine is pulpy [not that I have ever done that or anything). pound the zest lightly before you add it to help release the orange-y goodness
Heat all of these ingredients and serve to your delighted guests. If, for some reason, something goes wrong and it doesn’t work out, do what I do with botched recipes and add more sugar.
As promised from last week, a few more wedding photos…
