Lets be honest it’s not Christmas without a steaming glass of this ruby elixir! For me it’s one of the best ways to invoke that festive feeling. Use liberally on any whom are lacking in Christmas spirit throughout December, for example on any scrooges, Grinch’s or pesky in-laws, serve one glass hourly or as required. I have yet to see someone frown with a glass of this in hand!

The difference in this recipe in comparison to shop bought mulled wine or other recipes is that it uses real wholesome ingredients meaning that it’s not dripping with processed sugar and unnatural flavourings. This in my opinion means that it could be consumed daily…. for health purposes of course!

All of the ingredients for this recipe are easily available, for example I bought all of mine in lidl! Also a quick little note, I make this and give it as gifts in cute little bottles. It makes a great little pressie for that unexpected guest! Now come on you multi-tasking genius lets make some pressies and get merry!

Here is my audio walk through of the recipe, press play when you want to start and just pause me whenever you want, to make your own:

Makes approx. 1.5 litres
INGREDIENTS
2 Bottles Red Wine
2 Clemintines – Juice and Peel
1 Lemon – Juice and Peel
1 Lime – Juice and Peel
200ml Maple Syrup
6 Cloves
1 Cinnamon Stick
3 Bay Leaves
½ Nutmeg Grated 0r ¼ tsp.
1 Vanilla Pod
2 Star Anise

Ok first things first, grab yourself a large pot, pop the maple syrup, spices, bay leaves, juice and skins off the lemon, lime and clementine’s into the pot. Grab your vanilla pod, slice in half length ways with a knife and scrape the inside seeds out and pop the seeds and the pods into the pot. Lastly pour in half a bottle of the red wine.

Now, it is really important that you don’t pour all the wine in as for now we just want to make a condensed syrup that is pungent in flavour, so if we did it with all the wine all of the alcohol would have cooked off!

So lets pop our pot onto the heat and bring our spiced syrup to a boil, leave to boil and reduce by half, this should take about 5 minutes. This is the most important step in the whole thing as this is what is going to infuse our lovely wine.

Once the spiced syrup has reduced by half add the remaining wine! Now all we have to do is let this heat to a very gentle bubble and then we take it off the heat so that we don’t cook off all the alcohol!

That’s it my sweets, how easy was that! Just strain it through a sieve and serve or bottle or go half and half and do both! Its up to you, ah sure have a glass, it would be rude not too!
Have a Merry ….. Merry Christmas xxx

There’s more recipes on my blog here!