October 1st, 2018 by Chris Chapman

Nothing gets you in the mood for the festive season like a warming glass of mulled wine! You might hate Christmas songs, festive jumpers, and Christmas TV, but it’s impossible to be a Grinch with a sweet and soothing glass of mulled wine in your hands. If you want to get merry with a mulled wine this festive season, read on; we’ll tell you everything you need to know to mull enough wine for all the family!

Top Tips for Making Amazing Mulled Wine

Don’t Boil Your Wine

The most important part of making mulled wine is to make sure you get the temperature right. If you overheat your wine you can burn it and boil off some of the alcohol, giving it a bitter, overcooked flavour. You should normally heat your wine up to around 70°C. Mulling wine in a saucepan over your oven hob or a fire might seem convenient, but it’s not a good idea as you can’t set the temperature precisely enough. That’s why you should…

Use a Catering Urn

If you’re making mulled wine for all the family, or if you’re a restaurant owner or pub landlord, a catering urn is a wise investment. This will let you heat up large quantities of wine to a precise temperature and keep it hot all day long, which is great for when you’ve got family over for Christmas dinner. As catering urns heat your wine up to a set temperature and keep it there, you don’t have to keep slaving away heating and re-heating it while watching the clock to make sure you don’t boil the wine; simply pour a few bottles of wine into the urn, add your spices, and set your temperature. It’s as easy as that! As getting the temperature exactly right is so important, we recommend the MYLEK Xpresso catering urn. It’s the UK’s first digital catering urn, meaning it’s extra precise and will allow you to set your temperature at exactly 70 degrees. If you’re after the most convenient way to mull wine, the Xpresso is the way to go!

Use a Spice Bag

Most mulled wine recipes use some unground spices like cinnamon sticks, cloves, ginger, and so on. Dropping these spices straight into your mulled wine can often lead to them disintegrating, giving your drink an unpleasant gritty texture. Pick up a spice bag (or make your own with some muslin or gauze) to fill with unground spices. This will help the spices infuse into your mulled wine without disintegrating.

Add Your Sugar at the Beginning

Christmas is the time of year to indulge your sweet tooth, so don’t hold back with the sugar! You want to use around four tablespoons of sugar for every bottle of wine you’re mulling. If you like, you can replace sugar with another sweetener like honey or syrup. You need a lot of sugar (or sweetener) to help balance out all the other flavours that you’ll have in your mulled wine, and bear in mind that most mulled wine recipes call for some heavier booze (like sloe gin) to be added as well, so don’t be shy with the sugar! Your sugar should be the first thing that you add to your wine so it has plenty of time to fully dissolve.

Simple Mulled Wine Recipes

Now that you know how to make perfect mulled wine every time, all that’s left is to look up some recipes! If you’re using a catering urn, these are simple recipes that are suitable for use in restaurants and catering businesses as well as at home. All of these recipes can be made using the same method – simply pour your wine into the catering urn, switch it on and set your temperature to 70°C, then add the sugar and stir. Once the sugar is mostly dissolved, add the rest of your spices and let the wine gently heat up! Remember to make use of a spice bag for adding any spices that are unground. You can adjust the quantities however you like, so don’t worry if you’re making more or less mulled wine than this.

Traditional Mulled Wine (serves 12)

• 3 bottles red wine
• 3 large cinnamon sticks
• 6 star anise
• 12 cloves
• 6 strips lemon zest
• 12 tbsp caster sugar
• Sloe gin (optional, stir in to serve)

Mulled Rosé (serves 8)

• 2 bottles rosé wine
• 2 star anise
• 2 balls stem ginger
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 10 allspice berries
• Half a grapefruit (sliced)
• 4 tbsp crème de cassis (this replaces your sugar)

Traditional Glühwein (serves 8)

• 2 bottles red wine
• 200g sugar
• 4 whole cloves
• 4 cinnamon sticks (plus optional small cinnamon sticks to serve)
• Peel and juice from 2 oranges

Fruity Mulled Rum Punch (serves 8)

• 2 bottles red wine
• 250ml spiced rum
• 500ml water
• Peel and juice from 2 oranges
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Zest of 1 lime
• 250ml agave nectar
• 10 whole cloves
• 2 whole nutmeg, grated
• 2 large cinnamon sticks
• 1 vanilla bean
• 4 star anise