Ingredients for Mulled Wine

Series Summary

Wine comes in many flavors, tints, tones, levels of dryness and blends. Wines are used for cooking or to enhance the flavor of a meal or certain dish. Wine is made from the fermentation of fruits such as grapes, strawberries, elderberries and blackcurrants. Depending on the grapes, the product yielded is called zinfandel, pinot grigio, pinot noir, merlot, chardonnay, blanco noir or other variations of wine. Some wines include carbon dioxide that is a product of fermentation. These wines are sparkling wines or champagnes and are often used in celebratory events such as weddings, graduations, holiday parties, and other occasions.

In this free video series, our expert takes wine to another level with the popular holiday drink of mulled wine. Learn how to make mulled wine with step-by-step instructions for preparing the vanilla, sugar and spices. Get expert tips for warming the red wine with the spices to create a delicious alcoholic drink for your next Christmas party. If you are looking for an interesting and delightful punch, let our expert show you how to make mulled wine in this free video recipe series.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Brandon Sarkis on behalf of Expert Village. Today I'm going to show you one of my favorite alcoholic drinks to drink when it's cold outside, Mulled Wine. Let's take a second to go over our list of ingredients today. It's quite a lot of things but you'll see that it's an easy recipe. First things first, we're going to need one whole bottle of red wine. I'd go with something lighter, something fruitier, like a Spanish wine would be good. Or, also a nice light French, like a Beaujolais or something along those lines. Something you don't want to go with something really really heavy, it will just drag the whole thing down. It's supposed to be a nice fruity, really kind of a fun warm drink to drink. We're also going to need a cup of granulated sugar, this is just the plain white sugar you get at the grocery store. We're going to need three cinnamon sticks here, whole sticks, not the powdered stuff. You're going to use two of these in the recipe and the other is going to be a garnish for the drink at the end. Let's see. I have some cloves here. These are actually whole cloves and the difference being that they have a little stick and a little ball on the end. That's how you can tell it's a whole clove. So I've got five of those. Moving right along here, I've got one teaspoon of ground nutmeg, and that is what it is I guess. Here I have a half a teaspoon of just whole black pepper corns. And these are the things that go into the pepper mill to give you black pepper. The little black things right there. It's gotta be black, I wouldn't use the red or green because that would be weird tasting. I've tried it before. Here I have a half a teaspoon of allspice. You can also sub out ginger if you wanted. It would just give it a different flavor. If you go with ginger I'd use a little bit less. I've also got one tablespoon of vanilla extract. You can also sub this out with a whole vanilla bean. Just split it in half and drop it in the sauce...the drink. "The sauce", listen to me. I prefer using vanilla extract. It's just easier to use and easier to get a hold of. Over here, I've got one star anise. You can buy these by the jar at the grocery store. This gives it a licorice kind of smell and flavor - aroma if you will. I also have one orange, just regular orange size. I also have one regular sized lemon here. And I also have an optional ingredient here, which is a cup of this is actually cognac but you can also use brandy. This isn't necessary but I think it makes a better drink. So, let's get onto now I'll show you what you need to make today's recipe and we'll actually get started."