Cheers! 10 days of Holiday Beverages Number 3

Holiday beverages number 3 continues 3 trends: Hot drinks, spicy recipes, and both alcohol and NA drinks. What’s different today for both is that I don’t actually make these. I drink them, but I buy them. Last night, we had dinner with a dozen friends. It was a fine and fun evening. We tasted spiced Christmas ales, and I brought mulled wine that we shared.

Holiday Beverages Number 3

Mulled Wine

Today’s hot and spicy holiday cocktail is mulled wine, which, to be honest, is a drink I’ve never made. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy mulled wine when the temperature dips and the holidays approach; I just don’t make it. I buy it at Aldi’s Winterliebe Gluhwein.

Since I don’t make my own mulled wine, I went online to check out a few recipes and found they were pretty different than I expected. Most of them included apple cider with the wine, some had apples, and many used oranges along with the spices. Here’s an example from Bon Appetit.

I don’t have all the ingredients to experiment with these recipes yet, nor the time today (it’s almost time for kick-off!). I’ve added it to my to-do list and will report later.

Hot Apple Cider

Funny thing, I’d previously decided today’s NA would be hot Apple cider. However, I didn’t realize Apple cider was an ingredient in mulled wine until today when I started checking out recipes. I usually heat up some fresh cider and occasionally use powdered packs of Apple cider. And I have added spices and honey to the fresh cider.

I found and was fascinated by the recipe below from Nancy Fuller on The Food Network. Look at the last optional ingredient! Ok. I’m down to try it.

There you have it, day 3 with all 3 trends and some eye-opening discoveries for me. Cheers!