Christmas Special Weekend - Part One: Mulled Wine

Well people. It is Christmas! And nothing smells, tastes or induces decent alcohol poisoning like a good mulled wine.And here is how to do it.

Other ingredients for other Christmas things included

Ingredients:

2 x Clementines

1 x Peel of a lemon
1 x Peel of a lime 
250g Caster sugar
1 x Hand full of soft brown sugar
6 x Whole cloves
1 x Cinnamon stick
3 x Bay leaves
1tbsp Ground nutmeg
1 x Whole vanilla pod, halved
2 x Star anise 
2 x Bottles of red wine

Step 1.

Start by hand peeling large sections off the fruit over the an at least 2 litre pan, not on the hob at this point. Once done, pour in the caster sugar NOT THE BROWN, and then squeeze the juice out of the clementines. Put it on the hob at full temperature.

Step 2.

Add the cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and the nutmeg to the mixture. Throw in your halved vanilla pod and then top it all with just enough red wine to cover the ingredients. Let this simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved into the red wine and then bring to the boil. Keep on a rolling boil for about 4 minutes then you need to add the brown sugar. You should then turn down the heat really low to keep it warm but definitely not boiling.. boiling makes the alcohol disappear and you do NOT want that.

Step 3.

Once the brown sugar is in, the red wine should have become more of a thick syrup. You are more than welcome to add some more sugar if you want it very very sweet but I can confirm this recipe is already for a quite sweet mulled wine. Once the pan is no longer boiling and it just vapour making warm, add the star anise and the rest of the two bottles of wine. Keep heating for around 5 minutes.. taking sips to see if it is warm enough (at least that's your excuse) and when you are happy with the temperature, go to step four.

Step 4.

Drink it. Make sure you check out how to make mince pies in the Christmas Weekend Special blog Part Two.
Merry Christmas!!

Very nice

This is what happens after too much....