Does anyone happen to have a good 'tried and tested' Mulled Wine recipe please?

I tried to cheat and have scoured the Supermarkets for those little muslin bags you used to be able to get with all the relevant spices in... but can't find any!

I generally chuck the wine in the pan with some citrus fruit, cloves, cinammon sticks (and more brandy than is probably sensible!) then hope for the best! But despite sieving I always get little bits of cinammon stick and I'm sure there must be  more exciting recipes?

Help!
(wether I manage to reply of course will be testament to how good the ensuing recipes are ;-) *Hic* )

I'm a lazy so and so, I bought some ready mulled from Marks and Spencer. :o)

Dawn R.

whispers:
I may resort to that yet! and the M&S one is the best, quite tempted by the mulled cider too!

I made up a  load of the little muslin bags last year to sell at Christmas fairs - didn't do any this year.  My recipe is:  Put in large sause pan 2 bottles Red Wine (a full bodied, fruity one), 1 pint orange juice (no "bits" kind), a glass of Brandy, Golden Granualted sugar to taste (about 3 tblspn as a guide).  If you can't get the spice sachets the cut a square of muslin and put  in: whole cloves, grated nutmeg, pinch ground ginger, and some star anise if you have it.  Tie muslin parcel up with string and add to pan, along with 2 cinammon sticks and slices or orange and lemon.  Heat slowly, stirring gently to help dissolve sugar - do not let boil as this will burn off the alchohol and tast awful.  Remove cinnamon sticks and spice bag, strain into a clean pan, and add fresh orange/lemon slices as preferred, bring back to preferred temperature.  Can be kept warm for quite a while, jsut remember not to let it start to simmer/boil.

Mulled cider same thin, but forget the orange juice, and add apple and lemon slices.  For drivers/non drinkers you can do a non alchoholic version using still apple juice.

Enjoy!

You'll want cloves, whole allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon (preferably in a stick). Probably also sugar, as wine/cider etc all seem to taste inexplicably sharper when hot.

The spices need to be put in a piece of muslin and tied (like a bouquet garni) - if you only have ground nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice etc then this helps but the result will be cloudy.

I'm making hot mulled apple juice tomorrow (a tot of brandy available for those who want it) and that's being done in my slow cooker. 4 pints apple juice (or cider); 4oz light brown soft sugar (or to taste); 1.5 tsp cloves; 1 tsp whole allspice; 1 x cinnamon stick, 1 x sliced orange unpeeled. I will probably also add a little grating of nutmeg to that at some point.

I've not made it like this before so fingers crossed - I always got the sachets as well!! Schwartz used to do them, and once I used Spiced Tea (no tea in them) sachets from Lidl.

HG mine is from m&s too, 2 for £10 :-D

The spiced hot apple juice in the slow cooker (above) was lovely; nobody was drinking alcohol today apart from me, anyway but it tasted really special and Christmassy, and much better than I expected. I added a slosh of ginger wine to my glass and that really went well with it!!!  Didn't add nutmeg but did add a small knob of ginger to the muslin bag. It was only Tesco's cheap apple juice too, I almost went for the mega-bucks fresh-pressed kind but glad I didn't, as it really didn't matter.

Best of all there is some left to drink tomorrow, and it will be really spiced by then, once I've reheated it.