Planning for our upcoming holiday season has been an emotional roller coaster ride for us this year. First, we planned a vacation to Bhutan with a lot of uncharacteristic advanced planning, pulling our collars at having gotten the best deals of the season and all that jazz, only to be let down by the flight operator whose sudden fate looks rather bleak. Not knowing what to do, since they have been cancelling flights left right and centre, and have still held on to ours, we decided to not become lying baits and act instead to salvage what was left of our holiday plans.
As it now appears, while we will celebrate Christmas in the city, the new year will be spent in one of our favorite destinations Bangkok. There is something comforting about visiting a place you already know your whereabouts. It is more comforting when you haven’t planned to run around your itinerary in a hurry to know the entire country in a jam-packed schedule. We do not know how much money we would be losing in the previous trip we just cancelled, but we do know our holidays would not go waste. Fingers crossed.
When KFB’s Christmas event was announced, it immediately had reminded me of things red and white, taking out the silver, rum spiked puddings and huge roasts adorning the table, surrounded by large chatty families and lots of laughter. Did I miss something? Of course I did. Drinking! Lots of wine, overflowing, self-repleneshing, copious amounts of dark warm alcohol to go with the merry spirit of winter evenings.
To go with the festive theme and have my own little celebration at having salvaged the vacation, I decided to make the Victorian Mulled Wine. This version uses port, something I am quite fond of.
Ingredients:
- Port wine: 2 wine glasses
- Water: 2 wine glasses
- Cinnamon sticks: 4-5 nos
- Cloves: 5-6 nos
- Ginger: 1 inc stick, smashed
- Sugar: 2 tbsp
- Orange peel: of 1 orange
- Orange marmalade: 1 tsp (optional)
Method:
- Heat 2 glasses of water in a sauce pan
- Add the spices, sugar and orange peel and bring to a boil
- Simmer for 15 mins or until syrupy
- Add the orange marmalade towards the end, just until molten into the syrup
- Add 2 glasses of wine and heat until warm enough to drink (do not boil)
- Serve and enjoy warm!
What better way to ring out the old and ring in the new! Merry Christmas and happy vacations everyone!
Antypasti 
I love the smell of mulled wine and enjoyed it the one time I partook of a warmish glass. However, as it’s Summer here in Australia and likely in high 30’sC, cold drinks are the best. We even try to avoid turning the oven on because it heats the house up. Trying to work out if I should do a roast on Christmas day or cold meats and salads.
Skinny Jeans Mum
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30 C sounds like one of our odd winter days here in India as well Kamille 🙂 A shandy sounds more like your Christmas drink!
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I tried making mulled wine recently but I’m not too sure how it’s supposed to taste so I didn’t know if I would like it, your recipe seems to be better though, my first anniversary is next week, think this is what we will be drinking! Thanks 🙂
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