The taste of mulled wine always enhances that Christmassy feeling and turns the festive mood on.

Disclaimer: If you are under-aged and/or shouldn’t be consuming alcohol there will be another festive beverage recipe coming soon.

I am aware that this blog promotes a healthy lifestyle and I’m not supposed to promote alcohol. In my personal opinion, a healthy lifestyle is not just about drinking green smoothies, having a sugar-free, oil-free, and god-knows what-free diet.

It’s about balance.

And balance is important for our physical but also for our mental state. This is now a much deeper topic. So I will leave it for some other time.

Read more about a balanced vegan diet here.

But all in all, I just wanted to let you know you shouldn’t stress about having an alcoholic beverage from time to time. So I will share with you this lovely, festive mulled wine drink to help you with the balance 🙂

Mulled wine is one of the drinks that set that warm and festive feeling inside of you. But also around you. You can get your friends and loved ones to prepare it all together. It could even be covid-friendly via Zoom, if not in person. 🙂

I have to admit there is just something special in drinking sweet and spiced wine. It kinda reminds me of the Christmas pudding feeling after dinner. But drinkable. Do you know what I mean?

I am extremely grateful to be spending this Christmas with my family, which wasn’t the case for the past 5 years. Cooking this mulled wine made me even more grateful. To be able to prepare it with them and also share the recipe with all of you here.

The key ingredients to prepare this Festive mulled wine are:

• Wine – a good quality red wine is a must if you want to enjoy a luxurious taste. I am not an expert, therefore I will share what experts say. They recommend Italian reds, Southern French or New World Merlot and Shiraz wine. I used Merlot.
• Spices – The Spices are the most important ingredients after the wine. Cloves, star anise, and cinnamon sticks are the holy grail that transforms the standard red wine into a mulled wine 🙂
• Citrus – Orange and lemon slices will give your mulled wine that delicious, citrusy, and fresh taste. In case you prefer your wine sweet, you can omit the citrus. Personally, I highly recommend adding it.

Mulled Wine Recipe

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

5

minutes

Cooking time

15

minutes

The taste of mulled wine always enhances that Christmassy feeling and turns the festive mood on.

Ingredients

• 1 bottle red wine (750ml)

• 2 cinnamon sticks

• 5 whole cloves

• 3 star anise

• 1/4 cup brown rum

• 1 orange (sliced)

• 1/2 lemon (sliced)

• 1/3 cup brown sugar or maple syrup (see notes)*

Directions

• Combine all the ingredients into a large cooking pot.
• Stir everything, cover the pot and simmer on medium heat for about 15 minutes.
• Be careful not to boil the wine, otherwise, the alcohol will start evaporating.
• Remove from the stove and let it sit for a moment.
• Serve warm with more orange and/or lemon slices.
• Enjoy! 🙂

Notes

• Depending on the sweetness of the wine, add sugar gradually and add more/less by taste.

Are you a fan of mulled wine? Let me know in the comments below!