The mulled wines of central Europe

We had the great fortune to take a Danube cruise last year where we visited many, many Christmas markets. One thing they all shared was at least one stand selling mulled wines, an essential component when standing outside in the fresh winter air. The classic version to my taste is German glühwein (lit. "glow wine") (forralt bor ["boiled wine"] in Hungarian), which is made with red wine. Almost every market had one of these in an open kettle, steaming away. The big surprise for me was that it tasted almost nothing like the Scandi glögg, which is more spice driven. Glühwein is closer to a hot sangria, with fruit the primary addition.

Glühwein

• 750 mL red wine. The type doesn't much matter (I use Two Buck Chuck merlot), but I wouldn't splash out for nice German red wine. A cheaper St. Laurent, Blaufrankisch, or Zweigelt might be most traditional, I don't know.
• medium orange, sliced fairly fine
• half a large lemon, ditto
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 star anise
• 1 cardamom pod
• 50g / 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 mL / 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 8 oz. real cherries with juice or syrup, e.g. Luxardo Maraschino, but not the neon ones.
• (optional, I leave it out) 3cl / 2 Tbsp amaretto liqueur.

Heat the red wine on high until it's hot but not simmering. Add all ingredients except the cherries and amaretto, again get hot without simmering for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, add the cherries and let stand for 1 hour. You can also throw everything into a crockpot on warm for a couple hours. Strain, discarding everything but the liquid. Serve in warm mugs.

Adapted from BerlinStadtService

Below is the market in Berlin's Alexanderplatz. Almost every market has their own cup, which you have to pay a refundable deposit for. Keeps your hands warm and no need for disposable cups!

IMG_2280 (1).JPG

Next up, kinderpunsch!

My English friends make a similar beverage at Christmas called Bishop's Tipple. It's Sherry mulled with various spices. Archbishop's Tipple is the same thing but with Port instead of Sherry.

-Paul W.

Yes, all the great traditions. I assume you saw the political kerfuffles this year around the gluhwein stands in Germany. They were supposed to offer it only to go, but when people congregate and start drinking, social distancing becomes less common and the danger of covid spread increases!

My English friends make a similar beverage at Christmas called Bishop's Tipple. It's Sherry mulled with various spices. Archbishop's Tipple is the same thing but with Port instead of Sherry.

-Paul W.

That sounds lovely! I almost wonder if the drink Douglas Adams posited was found in every inhabited planet in the galaxy was not gin and tonic, but mulled wine.


Kids shouldn't be left out of the warming sugarfest, so there's a non-alcoholic version called kinderpunsch that uses fruit juice substituted for the wine.

Kinderpunsch

• 500mL apple juice or cider
• 500mL red or Concord grape juice
• 500mL black cherry juice (I didn't realize this was a thing, but we found some at our local grocery)
• orange, sliced
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 star anise
• 4 whole cloves
• 65g / 1/3rd cup sugar

Simmer all ingredients for 30-60 minutes and strain.
Adapted from Because Germany

I'll try to post about medovina tomorrow.

Yes, all the great traditions. I assume you saw the political kerfuffles this year around the gluhwein stands in Germany. They were supposed to offer it only to go, but when people congregate and start drinking, social distancing becomes less common and the danger of covid spread increases!

I hadn't seen a controversy about the stands per se, no. I did see that all the big markets were closed and restaurants were offering it to go. The picture of the empty Gendarmenmarkt square just gutted me. Our trip was 3 years in the planning, we're fantastically lucky it wasn't 4. Thankfully we have those warm memories of rubbing shoulders in a throng of other revelers to get us through this lonelier Christmas. Have you been lately?

OK, one more Glühwein variant.

Weißer Glühwein - White (or Rosé) Mulled Wine

• 750mL white or rosé wine, again not the good stuff.
• 450mL clear apple juice (looks nicer)
• 4g / 1 tsp. lemon zest (one small elm
• 1 1/2 tsp. powdered ginger
• 115g / 1/2 cup sugar
• 75mL orange liqueur, I like Cointreau

Add everything except for the liqueur to a saucepan and bring almost, but not quite, to a simmer. Keep over heat for 10 minutes, let steep for an hour. For best clarity, decant off the powdered ginger and zest, or just serve it all.

Adapted from ChefKoch.de

I'm not sure why this has more sugar than the red version, you could probably cut it back or omit it entirely. Red Glühwein is probably too easy to drink and the white stuff barely tastes like it contains alcohol, so please use even more care than usual.

Have you been lately?

Haven't been to Europe since November 2019. Our plan was to be in Berlin for summer 2020, but the best laid plans... At this point probably not again until summer 2021.

Here's one article about the controversy. I think Merkel weighed in at one point.
https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-mulled-wine-stands-spark-controversy-in-cologne/a-55838755

Have you been lately?

Haven't been to Europe since November 2019. Our plan was to be in Berlin for summer 2020, but the best laid plans... At this point probably not again until summer 2021.

Here's one article about the controversy. I think Merkel weighed in at one point.
https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-mulled-wine-stands-spark-controversy-in-cologne/a-55838755

Hope you do make it by then. Germany has been weird about the virus, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that there have been clashes.


Given the quality of Hungarian wine, I would expect that Slovakian wine would be good as well, but I've never seen it for sale. Slovakia is really big into mead, or medovina, a word that they sensibly borrowed from the Latin. (Hungarian, an Uralic language that has the lowest percentage of loan words of any language, is almost incomprehensible to non-speakers since it's not even Indo-European. The word for wine is bor, for crying out loud!) There's an almost mystical aspect, as demonstrated by this page describing a popular brand of mead:

If you belong to the "classics" who like to sit on the bench under the blooming tree with a book in hand, mead can be your pleasant companion. Do not let anyone disturb you, every page you read is a source of wisdom and inner strength.

That site also offers 10L casks of mead for sale, if you ever need an industrial quantity of wisdom and inner strength. Then again, if my country had been repeatedly conquered by the Mongols, Hungary, Austria-Hungary, and the Nazis, among others, maybe I would need a stiff drink as well. The previous recipes in this thread I can vouch for being reasonable facsimiles of European originals, but this one I've yet to try due to a lack of mead.

Mulled mead - Medovina

• 750mL sweet mead
• 2 oranges, sliced
• 1 apple, sliced
• 1/2 Tbsp. lemon zest
• 1.5 inch cinnamon stick
• 3 pieces star anise
• 3 cloves
• 3 Tbsp. sugar
• 3 Tbsp. mixed dried fruit

Add all ingredients and heat just to serving temperature, around 50ºC / 122 ºF. I find a number of references to the fact that you shouldn't let this boil, lest you lose the alcohol. I don't think that's particularly likely, but perhaps mead is more easily damaged by heating than grape wine?
Adapted from Food dreamers

One last one, to come later: Glühmost!

[Jenise]

Mead is popular up here. There are two mead wineries open to the public downtown, at least one of which has won notable awards from whoever does that for mead. Local honey is pretty plentiful, I'm sure that's why. Have only tasted one; I presume it's an acquired taste, at least for people uninterested in most sweet things.

Mead is popular up here. There are two mead wineries open to the public downtown, at least one of which has won notable awards from whoever does that for mead. Local honey is pretty plentiful, I'm sure that's why. Have only tasted one; I presume it's an acquired taste, at least for people uninterested in most sweet things.

It does have a distinctive taste, I suppose about as different from honey as wine is from grapes. I happen to like mead, but again comparing it wine, without the skins and their tannin, dry meads are not that interesting. As you can imagine with all the agriculture in California there's a ton of meaderies but I guess I don't have a favorite. I'm sure a mulled one would be good, though!

[Jenise]

It's possible I'd like it if I had a decent one, or at least like it better. The memory of the bad one is less foggy now; it was at a themed dinner party with about five couples, and best I recall not even the guy who brought it liked it. Poor placement might also have been responsible, the theme was Thai food and I recall him saying "I'd heard sweet wine goes well with it."

Cough cough.