Nothing quite warms your cockles in winter like a good mulled wine. At the Hamilton Farmers market the guy two stalls down from me always has a crock pot full of it that he sells during the day and every time he takes the lid off that crock pot it gets me thinking about making my own mulled wine. We gave this recipe a crack last week while we were away in Ohakune sitting next to a huge crackling fire, playing scrabble while the wintery weather blustered outside. I don't know if it was the setting, or the delicious combo of peppery kawakawa and smooth sweet honey that made it taste so good. Give it a go and let us know what you think!
Ingredients
2 bottles of cheap red wine
4 small oranges
1 lemon
12 cloves
grated nutmeg
2 cinnamon sticks
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut
8 tablespoons of honey
1 dried bay leaf
1 level tablespoon dried kawakawa leaves or 4-6 fresh leaves
Grate the zest off one of the oranges into a large pot, then cut it and squeeze the juice into the pot too. Cut the other oranges and the lemon in quarters and add to the pot
Add the wine, honey, cinnamon sticks, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, bay leaf and kawakawa.
Place the pan over a low heat.
Heat the mixture to just below simmering for 20 minutes.
Remove from the heat and let cool a little. Ladle the wine out, and pour through a sieve into mugs.
