Mulled wine is firmly in our top three Christmas based drinks. See also: snowballs and Baileys. But in general that pre-made supermarket stuff is not good; also, if you happen to glance at the label you’ll see it has dropped a few points off of the alcohol volume percentage scale. Not cool. Make your own at home, because its waaaay nicer and you can put whatever you like in it. No pesky alcohol-free orange juice for us, thanks. We’ll stick some Grand Marnier in instead. Oh, and look, you can even make it in a jug in the microwave. You can thank us later.
You will need:
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A few clementines
1 or 2 cinnamon sticks
1 or 2 star anise
A pinch of grated nutmeg (ground is ok too)
A bit of fresh ginger (again, go ground if you like)
A slug of Grand Marnier
Red wine – don’t go too cheap. We used this nice £4.99 Cotes du Rhone from Spar.
A few bay leaves
Handful of cloves
3-4 teaspoons of sugar (to taste)
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Pour in as much wine as you like into a microwaveable jug.
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Stick the cloves haphazardly into a clementine and plop this in.
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Add the bay leaves, cinnamon stick, star anise and ginger.
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Grate a bit of nutmeg and add to the mix.
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Add the sugar and as much Grand Marnier as you like.
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Stir, cover and microwave for 4-5 minutes. Leave to stand for another minute and serve yourself a generous glass.
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Garnish with a squeeze of fresh clementine and cinnamon stick.
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PS: you really can’t go wrong with ingredients for mulled wine – if it smells good, stick it in! I like to use anything including honey, lemon, vanilla, cardamom, brandy, apple and ginger beer. Do what makes you happy.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.