Mulled wine is fully associated with the Christmas period. When the holiday season comes, we enjoy drinking a little mulled wine, with friends, with family. It can be taken while strolling through the Christmas markets, outside on a terrace or simply at home in front of a warm fire. Mulled wine unites, comforts and gives us a pleasant time!
Throughout Europe, drinking mulled wine during the winter has become a true tradition to the point of almost making it an institution. However, originally, there is nothing noble about drinking mulled wine.
Back in time more than 2000 years ago: since ancient times, spices have been associated with wine. In Roman times the conditum paradoxum was a mixture of wine and honey; to this was added pepper, mastic (resin of the pistachio tree, Pistacia lentiscus and not the mastic of building J ), saffron, bay leaf and spikenard ( Nardostachys jatamansi plant whose odorous rhyzome is used).
Above all, the spices made it possible to preserve the wine much longer and thus mask the oxidized taste of the wine. This drink was generally consumed at the end of a meal as a digestive. Roman expansion then popularized spiced wines across Europe. Hypocras recipes in the Middle Ages inspired by Roman wines brought sweeter notes; and cinnamon, cloves and citrus fruits are also added.
It was only later, in Northern Europe, that sweet wine began to be heated. In fact, it gives the impression of warming up during cold days. We thus find the first traces of heated wine in Sweden, called Glögg served with grapes and almonds. In Germany, Alsace, Switzerland and even Austria, it is given the name Glühwein. Today, each country has its own recipe: in Scandinavia, vodka, rum or cognac are added to wine. In Quebec, we find Caribou, a mulled wine with strong alcohol and spices. Whatever the variations of mulled wine that we can find today, there remains one thing that we have kept: the tradition of drinking it at Christmas!
Our mixture of spices for mulled wine is composed of 4 spices and a citrus fruit: Ceylon Cinnamon for its subtle rose notes and its lemony and sweet hints, star anise for its warm anise flavor, ginger for its notes lemony and a hint of clove for its peppery, powerful and caramelized touches. We add kaffir lime mussel peels which bring intense notes of citrus and lemongrass. Ceylon Cinnamon (Cinnamomum Zeylanicum) , kaffir lime (Citrus hystrix) , ginger (Zingiber officinale) and clove (Syzygium aromaticum) come from our direct selection from Madagascar. Star anise or star anise (Illicium verum) comes from India.