Mulled Wine
Red wine with cinnamon, clove and orange, steeped at 75 degrees and never boiled.
- Preparation
- 10 min
- Cook/bake time
- 25 min
- Total
- 35 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Calories
Red wine with cinnamon, clove and orange, steeped at 75 degrees and never boiled. Alcohol boils at 78 degrees, and above 80 degrees bitter substances increasingly dissolve from peels and spices. If the wine boils, it loses both at once. The spices need time instead of heat.
Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Peel the citrus
Peel the orange and lemon with a vegetable peeler in wide strips and make sure to take as little white pith as possible. That is where the bitter substances sit, which make the mulled wine inedible after a long steeping time. Squeeze the orange.
- 2
Add the spices
Pour the wine into a pot and add cinnamon, cloves, star anise, cardamom, the citrus peels, the orange juice and optionally the vanilla bean. Do not stir in the sugar yet. First the wine steeps the spices, then it is sweetened.
- 3
Heat to 75 degrees
Heat the wine over low heat to 70 to 75 °C. This is the point where small bubbles form at the edge and the surface steams slightly, but nothing bubbles. With a thermometer it is not a guess. Without one: as soon as you see steam, turn it down immediately.
- 4
Steep for twenty minutes
Keep the wine at this temperature for twenty minutes without letting it boil. During this time the spice oils transfer into the wine. You should not let it steep for longer than thirty minutes, then the bitter substances from peels and cloves take over.
- 5
Sweeten and serve
Remove the spices and peels, stir in sugar or honey and taste. A dry wine usually needs the full amount, a fruity one significantly less. Serve the mulled wine in pre-warmed glasses or mugs with a fresh orange slice.
