Mead, mulled wine and Blackadder
The good news is that you can make your own mead. The bad news is that it will take months to ferment and so you’re a bit late for Christmas. Still, you can nip up to Lindisfarne and get yourself a bottle or eight, warm the contents on Christmas eve and have the rest next day.
In the meantime – Jamie Oliver’s mulled wine:
• 2 clementines
• peel of 1 lemon
• peel of 1 lime
• 250g caster sugar
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 fresh bay leaves
• 1 whole nutmeg
• 1 whole vanilla pod, halved
• 2 star anise
• 2 bottles of Chianti, or other Italian red wine
Peel large sections of peel from your clementines, lemon and lime using a speed peeler. Put the sugar in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the pieces of peel and squeeze in the clementine juice. Add the cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and about 10 to 12 gratings of nutmeg. Throw in your halved vanilla pod and stir in just enough red wine to cover the sugar.
Let this simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved into the red wine and then bring to the boil. Keep on a rolling boil for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until you’ve got a beautiful thick syrup. The reason I’m doing this first is to create a wonderful flavour base by really getting the sugar and spices to infuse and blend well with the wine.
It’s important to do make a syrup base first because it needs to be quite hot, and if you do this with both bottles of wine in there you’ll burn off the alcohol.
When your syrup is ready turn the heat down to low and add your star anise and both bottles of wine. Gently heat the wine and after around 5 minutes, when it’s warm and delicious, ladle it into glasses and serve.
Good, so with some of that inside you, lie back and relax:
Filed under: Society & human issues
That sounds delicious, James! I might have to make some!
Come on James, there’s enough work in opening Supermarket bottles.
Another Blackadder masterpiece.
(Victoria embracing Albert in widow weeds? I wondered if that was a Ben Elton pun or a simple prop hitch.)
I can vouch for Jamie’s mulled wine……we made it last year and in a few days (If I am fully recovered from this cough) we will be drinking it in the Davis household like its going out of fashion. One tip……….make it as sweet as you like!………forget the waist line….its Christmas.
And as for Blackadder……its a must for the festive period…..that and The Box Of Delights.
I feel a Christmas video coming on!!!!!!
That photo at the top looks very inviting
We love Black Adders Christmas Carol. Especially the bad versus good Black Adders futures.
Moniack Mead; that’s the mead of champions though as an Englishman I shouldn’t say it. A tree hugger pal of mine fermented some of the home-made stuff and used Champagne yeast. The dryest, foulest drink I’ve ever tasted, as it turned out. I’d rather the greenish pinkish stuff left over from a mad auntie’s visit last Christmas than home-made.
Wassail! however.