Mulled wine e mulled apple juice - warming in the cold season

What could be better than strolling around a Christmas market before Christmas and warming up with a glass of mulled wine? It warms us inside and out.
Mulled wine is not a recent invention. Spiced wine was drunk already in the Middle Ages.
You can buy mulled wine ready in a bottle. However, the bottled one certainly does not have the same quality as the one you cook yourself. This way you can choose the wine yourself, choose the quantity of the spices yourself and choose the sweetness yourself.

What are typical spices for mulled wine?

The classics are certainly cloves and cinnamon, but you can also add ginger, cardamom and star anise, depending on your taste.
A little lemon and orange peel round off the taste. Fresh orange slices also go well with it.
A recipe from the 19th century even describes the addition of nutmeg, aniseed and saffron.

I myself mostly use our Sapori del Mondo mulled wine mixture and add fresh orange slices. Our mixture consists of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, star anise and dried orange and lemon peel.
The quality of the wine is important, full-bodied wines taste better as mulled wine and have to be sweetened less. White wine is also well suited.
Using apple juice (for the Swiss: Most) is a non-alcoholic variant. I have even experimented with elderberry syrup before – and it was thrilling.

Here’s the recipe:

Mulled wine/hot apple juice

Ingredients:

1 lt (good) wine or apple juice
2 tablespoons Sapori del Mondo- mulled wine mixture or
1 cinnamon stick crumbled
2 cloves
1 star anise
½ tsp dried or fresh ginger
¼ tsp Cardamom seed
½ Tbsp orange zest
Little lemon peel
Sugar to taste and depending on wine quality

Preparation
Bring all the ingredients to the boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes, then sieve.
Try it with different syrups, orange or elderberry syrup are an excellent non-alcoholic alternative.