Mulled wine.

Tim and I met some friends for breakfast yesterday morning at a little coffeehouse in Urbana. The coffeehouse serves German food for dinner during the week, and one of the items advertised on the tablecards was gluhwein: a mulled wine with citrus and spices. Mulled wine seemed like the perfect thing for our current spell of nasty-cold weather, so I decided to throw some together to enjoy with the neighbors. I used a combination of a recipe from the Cook’s Illustrated Family Cookbook (which is my go-to cookbook) and some of the ingredients listed on the tablecard at La Gourmandise in Urbana.

Mulled Wine

• 1 large bottle dry red wine (cheap stuff is fine, we used Gallo Cabernet Sauvignon)
• 1 orange, halved, plus the zest of half of the orange
• 10 whole cloves
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 1/2 cup sugar

Dump the wine into a crock-pot. Add the sugar and vanilla bean, and stir.

Over medium heat, toast the cloves and the cinnamon sticks until fragrant (3-5 minutes).

Zest half of the orange and squeeze the juice into the crock-pot.

Wrap the cloves, cinnamon sticks, and orange zest in cheesecloth and place in the crock-pot. Make sure that the pouch o’ goodness is fully submerged. (If you don’t have cheesecloth, you can put the ingredients directly into the crock-pot, but you may want to strain the wine before you serve it.)

Set the crock-pot to low and heat for at least one hour, stirring occasionally.  You really don’t want the wine to boil, but it’s not a disaster if it does.

Drink, and be merry!