Skip to main content
Drink

Wine, Mulled

A hot drink made by simmering wine and water with spices, then sweetened and served with biscuits or toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wine, Mulled

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced wine

  1. Combine equal parts wine and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the spices in the water until flavored.

  3. Strain the liquid and sweeten it to taste.

  4. Mix the strained liquid with the wine and bring to a boil again.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot with wine biscuits or thin strips of dry toast.

  2. If using equal parts wine and water, whisk an egg in a bowl, gradually stir in the boiling liquid, and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Wine
Provides the main body and flavor, with acidity that balances the sweetness.
Water
Dilutes the wine and extracts flavor from the spices while it boils.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the spiced liquid.
Cloves
Adds a strong, pungent aroma that carries through the hot liquid.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic depth to the spiced liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the wine.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling liquid to the egg. Pouring hot liquid into the egg slowly while whisking gradually warms the egg proteins, so they thicken smoothly instead of scrambling into lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, sugar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Wine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipesElderberry WineElderberry Wine51 recipes