Mulling up

Whatever happened to mulled wine? It was a vital fixture of my undergraduate life, a means of doctoring cheap wine into something delectably drinkable. Just add cinnamon sticks and cloves and orange slices and brown sugar to a cask or two of goon et voilà,* instant European fireside ambience, general loquacity and bonhomie. Mulled wine is closer to blood temperature than room temperature; the ensuing rapid alcohol absorption rate contributes to the conviviality. A regular reader of this blog lived in a house I frequented frequently in which was installed a pot-bellied stove. This stove mulled wine through winter as bees buzzed in the hives on the roof. Can a more wholesome image of that particular alpaca scarf wearing, dreadlocked, earnest slice of mid-nineties undergraduate space-cake be evoked? Sigh (fondly). Shudder (ruefully). Deny (vehemently). Move on (immediately). I refuse to attribute my taste for mulled wine solely to hopelessly accelerated nostalgia. It is good stuff: warming liquid gingerbread, pleasantly intoxicating, spicy sweet and deeply atmospheric.

Mulled wine, I recall hazily, was also a feature of a couple of parties in my tinier than tiny post-graduate apartment/garret in Paris. It was revived not just because the weather was cold but because it had performed so sturdily over Christmas in Grindelwald and NYE in Vienna. I do realise that it is slightly obnoxious to recall the pleasures of a draught of gluhwein and a plate of spätzli halfway down a Swiss ski slope but do so I must. Laura and Alex and I, underclothed and ill-housed as we were as we hailed in the New Year of 2003, were saved by the warming powers of mulled wine and hot rum punch. And hence, mulled wine until early spring.

After that, however, there seems to be a distinct and lamentable absence of mulled wine in my life. Should I blame global warming? After all, mulled wine is not a warm weather drink? Has Sydney lacked the chilliness which justifies mulled wine? Have I forgotten something? Is there a collective will to throw off the daggy whiff of hippydom which e’er shall waft over a pot of mulled wine? Is mulled wine destined to be the lentil soup of the boozocracy, condemned for its wholesome associations in spite of its inherent Goodness?

Shift to the Ukraine, where most menus have a hot cocktails section and all bars served mulled wine. It’s under 10 degrees outside and so a pudding of baked cottage cheese and cherries (only cooked on the weekend!) and a goblet of mulled wine seemed not only appropriate but necessary. My heart did warm and my cheeks, they did redden; my soul verily became a winged thing and flitter and fly with glee!

In the absence of anyone with whom to discuss such thorny questions as men who call themselves feminists, the lure of the system, and the impossibility of full fee paying local students in Australian universities (it was the nineties…), I set myself to silent resolutions. Comrades, the time is ripening for the next mulled wine revival. If the revival of mulled wine could somehow be connected to the sudden proliferation of small and charming bars in Sydney, I could be relied upon to return to Sydney before the end of next winter. Otherwise, a delay until gin and tonic season proper could be on the cards. Yet another wedding, this one scheduled for December 2008, forecloses the threat of staying away until Pimms season.

* This is not a recipe blog but to pre-empt discussion of variants, I note the following: apple and pear can be added to mulled wine aux belles étudiantes, as can cardamon and vanilla pods, cassia bark and star anise, although preferably not all at once. I lost my innocence somewhere along the way and learnt to add a reasonable dash of brandy to the mix.