Saveur Cooks Authentic American - Editors Of Cook's Illustrated Magazine [66]
1 750-ml bottle medium-bodied red wine, such as zweigelt
½ cup sugar
8 whole cloves
4 lemon wedges
4 4-inch sticks cinnamon
Serves 4
Bring ingredients to a boil, stirring occasionally, in a 4-qt. saucepan and remove from heat. Discard cloves. Ladle wine into 4 glasses and garnish each with 1 of the cinnamon sticks and 1 lemon wedge. Serve hot.
COOKING NOTE Mulling is a method of flavoring liquid by heating it with herbs, spices, and other aromatics. Using whole cinnamon sticks, rather than powder, leads to a gentler extraction of the oils, and a softer flavor. Other whole spices, such as cardamom, nutmeg, and mace, will work just as well in this recipe.
Holiday Cheer
In northern Europe, mulled wine announces the arrival of the Christmas season. Vendors at winter markets that pop up throughout the region sell steaming mugs of it, while home cooks brew bubbling pots bound for the holiday table. In fact, though, the festive drink—typically a blend of red wine, citrus fruit, spices, and sugar—predates Christmas by thousands of years. Early civilizations, as far back as 5000 b.c., used heated, spiced wines for many purposes, ranging from the gastronomic to the religious. Romans drank a version called hippocras, named for the Greek doctor Hippocrates, because it was believed to have healing properties. The expansion of the spice trade between Europe and the East in the seventeenth century made the flavors we associate with the drink—such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and mace—more readily available, and today, many countries have their own recipe for mulled wine. In Sweden, glögg is scented with cardamom and sometimes fortified with hard liquor; the British make wassail, fragrant with ginger, nutmeg, and other spices. In Germany, it’s glühwein, a comforting concoction heady with cinnamon and holiday cheer.
Regent’s Punch
In London in the early part of the nineteenth century, punch houses were upscale gathering places where the fashionable could relax, and punch itself was a dry, complex drink presented with a fair amount of pomp. This one gracefully combines green tea and champagne with various liquors and three kinds of citrus.
1 cup sugar
1 cup cubed pineapple
2 lemons
2 oranges
1 Seville orange (also called bitter or sour orange)
2 green tea bags (or 2 tsp. green tea leaves)
1 cup brandy, preferably VSOP cognac
¼ cup dark Jamaican rum
¼ cup arrack liquor, preferably Batavia-Arrack van Oosten, or cachaça
2 750-ml bottles brut champagne, chilled Freshly grated nutmeg
Makes 3 quarts
1. In a 1-qt. saucepan, combine ½ cup sugar and ¼ cup water. Stir over high heat until sugar dissolves and transfer to a bowl along with pineapple. Allow to macerate in refrigerator for at least 8 hours to make a pineapple syrup. Strain and reserve; discard solids.
2. Using a peeler, peel lemons, oranges, and Seville orange, taking off as little white pith as possible. Transfer peels to a heavy bowl; reserve fruit. Add remaining sugar; use a muddler or a wooden spoon to vigorously crush sugar and peels together until sugar turns faintly yellow and slushy.
3. In a medium bowl, steep tea in 2 cups of boiling water for 5 minutes. Strain tea over lemon and sugar mixture; stir until sugar dissolves. Juice reserved fruit into tea mixture. Strain through a sieve into another bowl and discard solids. Stir in pineapple syrup, brandy, rum, and arrack. Chill mixture.
4. To serve, combine mixture and champagne in a punch bowl along with a large block of ice. Garnish with nutmeg.
COOKING NOTE Arrack, a fiery sugarcane-based spirit distilled on the Indonesian island of Java—and not to be confused with the grape-based, anise-flavored Middle Eastern spirit called