What with temperatures being below freezing, our recent snow day(s) and Christmas being less than two weeks away (please tell me I’m not the only one who hasn’t even started Christmas shopping!?) I’m officially feeling festive! Despite it being midweek and, as confessed above, I’m hopelessly behind on being organised, I’ve decided that this evening is the perfect time to whip up a literal vat of mulled wine, light the fire and hunker down at home with Christmas movies galore.

Adulting schmadulting.

If you feel like saying ‘F**k it, it’s Christmas!’ and doing the same, this recipe is super easy and you can make it as boozy (or non boozy) as you like… I adapted it slightly from a Jamie Oliver recipe found here.

THE PERFECT MULLED WINE

INGREDIENTS

• 2 Bottles of Red Wine, Malbec would be a good choice for mulled wine. (Don’t get the cheapest crap, nothing will make you feel worse in the morning but definitely don’t go for anything too special either!)
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 1 Cinnamon Stick
• 2 Oranges (Clementines)
• 1 Lemon
• 1 Lime
• 6 Cloves
• 1 Vanilla Pod (or 1 teaspoon of pure extract)
• 1 Whole Nutmeg
• 1 Star Anise

METHOD

1. Grab a big pot and put it over a medium heat.
2. Add your sugar and then slice up your oranges and throw them in along with the peel from the lemon and lime. Try and squeeze as much juice from the oranges as possible.
3. Now add your cinnamon stick, the cloves, the vanilla and a fair few grates of the nutmeg (around 15).
4. Now add a generous pour of the red wine (around 1/4 of the bottle).
5. Turn the heat up and let this boil away into your mulled wine syrup – for around 4 to 5 minutes.
6. When it has reduced to a syrup, turn down the heat, add your star anise and the rest of the wine. Let it heat gently for 5 minutes or so and then voila! Mulled wine!

Editors note – If you want to make it slightly less boozy, add more wine in the first step and let the alcohol boil away. You could add one bottle of wine in the first step and then 1 in the 2nd step. Play around with the ratios depending on personal preference just make sure you do add some to the syrup mixture, it really allows the flavours to develop.

It’s so easy and so delicious, whilst it might seem like a bit more effort to the usual uncork / pour method of wine drinking, it’s well worth it.

HOW ARE YOU GETTING INTO THE FESTIVE SPIRIT?