Chilly nights are on their way and we are getting ready with a classic favorite - mulled wine made with Vintner’s Cellars Cranberry Shiraz!

Homemade mulled wine is easy to make especially if you begin with one of our delicious fruit wines. Typically, mulled wine is made with red wine, the wine is sweetened, spiced, and heated.

Mulled wine is great if you are entertaining for holiday gatherings or just on a cold winter’s night. It can be made and served in a slow cooker, or simply make a small batch on your stovetop.

PLUS,

it makes a thoughtful gift for coworkers, friends, family or a great hostess gift. So, we’ve put together a unique and homespun gift idea for the upcoming holidays with a printable label that includes the complete directions for making mulled wine right on the label!

Because mulling the wine can take over the taste of wine an inexpensive, fruity full-bodied red wine like our Cranberry Shiraz is a perfect choice. All our wine kits make 30 bottles of wine. If 30 bottles of fruit wine is too much for you, recruit some of your fiends to share a batch. Give some as gifts and save some for yourself! The secret to a great mulled wine is the addition of honey and brandy but after conversation with a couple of excellent bartenders at Compass Distillers we opted to add a dose of Daily Ration Rum instead of brandy available in a convenient 50 ml bottle!

Start with making a mulling spice pouch. You can find the ingredients in the spice section at your local grocery store or the Bulk Barn.

MULLING SPICE POUCH

Makes one pouch:

1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp allspice berries
1 to 2 cinnamon sticks
2 star anise pods
1 doubled 6” square piece of cheesecloth
1 – 10” white kitchen string

1). Put the above ingredients in the centre of the cheesecloth.

2). Gather all corners of your cheesecloth and securely tie them together with the white kitchen string.

3). If your cinnamon sticks are too long, you can break them in half to fit in the centre of your pouch or tie the cinnamon stick to the outside of your pouch as shown in the photograph below.

RECIPE FOR MULLED WINE

1 (750 ml) bottle of Cranberry Shiraz wine

1 Mulling spice pouch

¼ Cup of honey or 5 - 8 tsp. brown sugar (to taste)

¼ Cup of brandy or spirit of choice (optional)

Sliced oranges, cinnamon sticks, cranberries for garnish (optional).

1. Combine wine, ¼ cup of honey or 5 to 8 tsp. of brown sugar into a pot and heat over a low to medium heat.

2. Add cinnamon stick and spice pouch, continue to heat for about 25-30 minutes, do not boil.

3. Remove spice pouch, before serving add brandy (if using). Ladle into mugs, garnish with cinnamon stick, orange slices and cranberries.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER FOR GIFTING

Using the white kitchen string we tied a piece around the neck of the spice pouch making sure it was long enough to wrap around the neck of the wine bottle as well. When you are happy with where the pouch hangs you can tie a knot in the string to secure the position then cut off any excess string.

We followed the same process with the 50ml bottle of rum purchased at Compass Distillers. Tying a piece of string around the neck of the rum bottle and making sure the piece of string was long enough to wrap around the neck of the wine bottle. We secured the bottle of rum slightly lower than the spice pouch.

OPTIONAL

You can add some “decorations” to your bottle for gifting such as dried orange slices and cinnamon sticks.

We used a needle to make a small hole in a wedge of dried orange then with the white kitchen string we tied it and a small cinnamon stick to the spice pouch. To top it off we added a red bow. Then included our printable label to complete the gift and for directions to make the mulled wine. Labels are printable on Avery label #8168 and can be found at Staples. Each sheet will produce 4 labels. You can download our printable label here.