Christmas Market Mulled Wine

It's officially the holiday season, and we couldn't be more excited!  One of our favorite parts about the holiday season is Christmas markets. While we've been to a few Christmas markets in the US (See our posts on the Denver Christmas market and Cambria Christmas market), we don't see these as often as we wish. But, in Europe, they are in almost every city. These markets are the best place to "window shop" and buy little trinkets to bring home from your travels. Our favorite market to date is the Edinburgh Christmas Market. It covers the whole East Princes St Garden area, and it is filled with hundreds of stalls that sell traditional Christmas market trinkets, and local artisan items. There is an unbelievable food section with stalls that sell lobster rolls, salmon cooked on an open fire grill, raclette and potatoes, haggis burgers, cheesy spaetzle, and everything in between! Unsurprisingly, our favorite thing to buy is a nice hot mug of mulled wine. These stalls are dotted throughout the market and sell steaming mugs of mulled wine with the option to spike it often with brandy, Grand Marnier, Amaretto, or Whisky. Ivy likes hers straight, while Eve likes to add something to hers if it's especially nippy outside. 

When we aren't wandering Christmas Markets, we often make mulled wine at home. We love how the rich and warming scent fills our house and gets us into a cozy holiday spirit. We want to share our tried and true mulled wine recipe with you all. We hope it warms you up and gets you in the holiday spirit too! Happy holidays!

xxx Ivy and Eve

Makes 4-6 servings depending on serving mug size.

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of dry red wine - Choose a full-bodied red such as a Merlot, Syrah, or Malbec

• 2 cinnamon sticks

• 2 cardamom pods

• 4 whole star anise

• 6 whole cloves

• 1 lemon 

• 3 mandarin oranges (or tangerines or easy-peel oranges)

• 3+ tbsp brown sugar

• Optional additions: Grand Marnier, brandy, whisky, or Amaretto
  

Directions:

Mulled wine:

1. Slice the peel off of the lemon.

2. Peel 1 orange.

3. Quarter remaining orange.

4. Add wine, 3 tbsp of brown sugar, spices, lemon peel, quartered orange, and 1 orange peel to a large saucepan and heat on low for around 20 minutes, or until "mulled" enough for your taste.

5. Pour into your most festive mugs, adding 1 oz of your liquor to each mug if you'd wish.

6. Garnish with an orange star or two.

7. Enjoy!

Tip: For a lower alcohol version, add 1 1 /2 cups of water (we do this if we know everyone will want several mugs). For an Alcohol-free version, sub cranberry and/or pomegranate juice for the wine. You can also sub apple cider (alcoholic or not) to make mulled cider!

Orange stars:

1. Carefully peel 1 orange, trying to keep most of the peel intact and in large pieces.

2. Use kitchen scissors (or a tiny star cookie cutter like THIS ONE) to cut out star shapes. 

3. Use as a garnish for your mulled wine.

Tip: You can make a bunch of these and air dry them for a few hours/overnight, and keep them in a jar or baggie to use as garnish whenever! They'd be perfect with mimosas, sangria, or even on top of desserts!

Easter Bunny Approved: Wines and More

Our family always hosts Easter Sunday at our house. This included egg dying, Easter dinner, and of course, the Easter egg hunt. We used to have a lot of land, perfect for epic Easter egg hunt. As kids, we strategized and created alliances amongst ourselves in order to find the Golden Egg. Our Golden egg was usually filled with some sort of tasty treat, and money. This egg hunt was the event that dictated the rest of the day. All of the Dads would hide eggs for what seemed like hours and they were so good at it, we used to find old eggs years later! Now that we are older, we definitely still love the easter egg hunt, but we also have a greater appreciation for the gathering of family, near and far, to celebrate faith, food, and fun. 

This year, we have been tasked with our regular rolls of easter egg dying, and picking out the wines for our Easter feast. We happily took on these rolls and wanted to share both with you all! 

First off, easter egg dying. This year we cut it a little short and forgot to purchase the box kit for dying easter eggs. We googled how to do it with food dye, vinegar, and water, and it was SO simple we wondered why we ever bothered buying the kit. 

Ingredients per color:

1. Half cup boiling water

2. 1 teaspoon vinegar 

3. Food Coloring

4. Temporary tattoos (optional) we used Flash Tattoos 

We used this website to help create the colors we wanted, or just experiment and make your own! We dyed our eggs and let them sit and dry. Then we applied the temporary tattoos. You simply sponge them on the egg with warm water as you would on yourself.

Ta da!

Once we checked that off our list, we headed to the magical land of Bevmo. If you are lucky enough to have one of these in your town you should definitely invest some time shopping there. Be sure to sign up for a Bevmo card for super great deals, like their 5 cent wine sale. We selected four options for our Easter dinner to suit everyones tastes, and each goes well with a traditional easter dish.

Wine Details:

Bubbly Schramsberg Blanc De Blancs | Rose Gerard Bertrand Sauvageonne Ro | Pinot Noir Morgan | Cabernet Sauvignon Souverain

We picked bubbly to start off our Easter celebrations, we have mimosas in the morning and continue with bubbly throughout the day. We picked a bubbly that is crisp and zesty, and pairs well with the richness of deviled eggs. Bubbles also go great with chocolate, as we're sure you already know! Rosé is another great wine to have on your Easter table because its pretty and festive. A dry rosé pairs well with the Easter's centerpiece ham since it has light tannins and flavors work well with the saltiness of the dish. If you celebrate with red wine drinkers, pinot noir works equally well with ham. Lastly, if you have lamb on your table we suggest a full bodied red, such as a Cabernet Sauvignon. Lamb's strong flavors need an equally bold wine to pair with it. 

Before you rush off to prepare for Sundays festivities, here is some easter basket inspiration. We made these just incase the Easter Bunny forgets to bring the bubbly!

Happy Easter!

xxx Ivy & Eve