Winter Warmer

Way too long between postings, but the holidays intervened....

While living in Germany in college, I was introduced to a wonderfully warming beverage to combat bitter Winter chill--Glühwein.  Glühwein is the German version of mulled wine.  I first encountered it at the Christkindlmarkt (Christmas Market) in Regensburg.  My memory of the first experience with it clouds over after the first two cups.  Fortunately, I sampled this wonderful concoction many other places and times.  When I returned to the US, I found a German store in Colorado Springs (I think long since out of business) that sold the spices in a teabag.

In the intervening years, I've taken the basics and made the recipe my own...

Rob's Glühwein
1 large jug of cheap red wine (1.5 l)
1 orange (sliced)
1 lime (sliced)
1 lemon (sliced)
1 cup orange juice
5-6 peppercorns
4-5 whole cloves
6" of cinnamon stick (roughly 2 sticks) broken into 1" pieces
5-6 allspice berries
3 teabags of fruit tea (I recommend herbal blackberry or strawberry)
1.5+ cups sugar (to taste)**
3 cups spiced rum (or more to alcoholic preference!)

Pour the wine into a large pot (with a tight fitting lid) and add everything except the sugar and rum.  Cover the pot.  On low heat, warm the mixture until just below simmer.  This should take at least 60 minutes, for the flavors to properly infuse the wine.  Add the sugar and stir until completely dissolved.  Cover and maintain temperature for another 10 minutes.  Taste to make sure that the concoction is neither too sweet nor too bitter/tannic.  Add the rum and stir thoroughly.  Serve immediately (being careful to not ladle out the spices) in coffee mugs, adding one slice of citrus to each mug.

**For 1/3 of the quantity of the sugar, I usually add sugar that has been "aged" with a vanilla bean for at least 2 weeks.