How to Make Mulled Wine

When it comes to choosing the right holiday cocktail or beverage, consider making a delicious mulled wine. Mulled wine is incredibly easy to make, giving party hosts a quick, convenient way to create a flavorful holiday beverage for guests. You can even come up with a signature flavor that guests can enjoy by taking the recipe and customizing it to make it your own.

At Joe Canal’s, we pride ourselves on knowing the different flavors and notes of each of our incredible wines, spirits, beers, and other products. We can suggest different beverages depending on your unique needs and preferences. Here, we discuss how to make mulled wine.

What Is Mulled Wine?

Mulled wine is a beverage made by combining wine and various spices to create a holiday cocktail. It involves fusing the delicious scents and flavors of certain spices and fruits to enhance the taste of wine. The mulling process is typically completed with red wine, but you can feel free to use any type of wine. Mulled wine is served warm, making it perfect for a fall day or any holiday party. The mulling process can help to sweeten the flavors, giving it a unique taste that’s fulfilling during the colder months.

Mulling wine allows you to create unique flavors, adding smoky, fruity, sweet, or tart flavors to your wine. While you can purchase pre-mulled wine beverages, you may opt to complete the process yourself. This way, you can have a fun holiday activity along with a delicious, flavorful beverage to celebrate.

Making Mulled Wine

Mulled wine can be made using many different types of wines, spices, and fruits. Traditionally, red wine is the best for mulled drinks. However, you can also use white wines to make flavors more unique and exciting. After choosing your wine, you should consider adding a sweetener to the mix. This can include sugars or simple syrups, but you can also add sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, or apple cider for more of a holiday flavor. Next, you want to choose your spices. To create a holiday drink, you can try adding traditional holiday spices like cinnamon, vanilla, or ginger. However, feel free to choose other spices to concoct a drink that caters to your personal preferences and flavors.

The next step in the mulled wine recipe includes selecting different fruits to simmer with the wine. Not only does this add delicious flavors but it also helps to achieve a unique taste in your beverage. Some popular fruits that can be added to wine include pears, oranges, apples, lemons, or limes. Other fruits can produce delicious, unique flavors. If you’re looking to add an extra kick to your cocktail, you can even consider adding liquors like bourbon, brandy, or other choices.

To make mulled wine, you should add all ingredients in a saucepan and heat it on the stove until it reaches a simmer. You should lower the heat right before it begins to bubble and boil. Allowing it to boil for too long can cause the wine to evaporate out of the mixture.

After it reaches a simmer, you should cover the saucepan completely and let it sit for up to three hours. Once this process is complete, you must strain the spices, fruits, and other elements out of the drink. After tasting, you can add more sweeteners to adjust the taste as needed. Now it’s time to serve your warm, delicious mulled wine cocktail.

Helpful Tips & Tricks

While you’re free to choose whichever wine to make a mulled cocktail drink, it’s recommended to use wines that are dark and more fruitful in flavor, like Merlots. However, you should avoid mixing different wines to prevent less desired flavors. Mulling your wine can be great for adding flavors and notes to wines that you may not particularly like but still want to drink. This way, you can repurpose it to create a unique, alcoholic holiday beverage for you and your loved ones to enjoy.

Mulled wine cocktails taste even more delicious when paired with certain foods, like desserts, cheeses, or nuts. You can also make mulled wine in appliances like slow cookers for an easy and efficient way to create your holiday drink.

Start the Mulled Wine Process at Joe Canal’s

Joe Canal’s can assist you in choosing wines and flavors that work best for your mulled wine cocktail. Located in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, we have the resources needed to ship wines locally, as well as to those in Florida and Washington, D.C. To learn more about mulled wine and other beverages we offer, contact us today.