The result? Classic mulled wine – not particularly exciting, but palatable enough, despite the inclusion of water, which has no place in a wine-based punch. I simmer the spices together in 235ml water, "until the flavour is extracted", and then add a pint of wine, and some sugar to taste, and bring it all to the boil. Thing have moved forward in 500 years rather than just sticking everything into ye pan and hoping for the best, this recipe starts with a mulled tea. She's also pretty vague ("in making preparations like the above, it is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful" she explains, helpfully), but at least the list of ingredients is more manageable: cloves, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, wine and sugar. Jumping forward five centuries, I turn to Mrs Beeton, Delia's Victorian great-grandmother, for advice. The mishmash of spice is overpowering – it tastes like something that might have been used to ward off the plague, rather than to make merry with during the cold, candle-lit evenings of the 14th century. Further than this, the recipe is coy, so I tip in some cheap French red, on the vague basis that wine was probably pretty rubbish in those days, and a suitably parsimonious amount of sugar, and taste.
A historical site helpfully suggests substituting rosemary for this aromatic Indian root, so I stick a bit of that into the pestle and mortar as well. Given the drink's origins, I decide to start with a recipe from The Forme of Cury, a cookery book published about 1390, which starts, promisingly: "Pur fait Ypocras …" I must grind together cinnamon, ginger, galangal, cloves, long pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, cardamom and grains of paradise – although sadly I'm unable to lay my hands on any "spykenard de Spayn". Mulling is not just an excuse to serve laughably cheap wine to your unfortunate guests, although it does have that as a fringe benefit – there's a real art to it. The thin, oddly sour broth on tap at most pubs during the festive season is a sad comedown for a tipple originally designed to show off the wealth and generosity of a medieval household. Such is the time of year.ĭespite its high sugar content, mulled wine is not a drink that's aged well. "Ooh, mulled wine!" said my friend, "brilliant!" And lo, despite having arrived with the intention of sinking a cold, dry gin and tonic, I ended up clutching a plastic cup of warm sweet wine. O n the first day of Christmas – well, December – I found myself waiting at an unusually fragrant bar.
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