I stumbled upon the idea of mulled wine syrup by mere happenstance. An extra half cup of sugar, which was serendipitously dumped into a pot of simmering mulled wine, gave my favorite holiday drink a thick, syrupy consistency . . . and then the lightbulb went off. Let’s pour this doozy over ice cream!! So here it is, a spiced wine syrup that is so luxuriously delicious and easy to make, it’s officially become a tradition in my household.
Mulling spices and ingredients vary drastically – it really just depends on your personal taste. I love orange peel, cinnamon sticks, star anise, nutmeg, cardamom, vanilla bean and pink peppercorns in my mulled wine. It helps to toast the spices in a pan, over medium heat, for a couple of minutes to help release all oils and flavor.
Combine a bottle of red wine (I used an inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignon here), the spices, split vanilla bean, orange peel, and sugar into a medium sized pot. Bring it to a boil and then simmer it for about 20 minutes until it reduces to about half the volume. Let it cool overnight and strain it with a fine mesh strainer into a jar. It can keep in the refrigerator for about a week.
When you’re ready to devour it, simply pour it over vanilla ice cream!
I imagine it would be just as delicious over a stack of pancakes or swirled into plain yogurt. Yum. Or even added into a cocktail. Todd??
(images by HonestlyYUM)
MULLED WINE SYRUP
Ingredients:
- 1 bottle of red wine
- 1 cup of sugar
- 3-4 pieces of orange peel
- 1 vanilla bean, split but not scraped
- 1/2 a whole nutmeg
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 5 cardamom pods
- 2 star anise
- 3 tbs pink peppercorns
Directions:
- toast the nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, cardamom, star anise and peppercorns on a pan, over medium heat, for about 2-3 minutes until fragrant.
- combine spices, sugar, vanilla bean and orange peel with a bottle of red wine in a medium pot
- bring to boil and lower heat
- reduce for 30-40 minutes until consistency is thick
- chill overnight
- strain into an airtight container until ready to use
Love it.
One variant, mix red wine wine Porto wine, delicious.
With this wonderfully festive syrup recipe, I can drag out Christmas well into the New Year!
What a gorgeous syrup, this is a perfect ice cream topper!
This is so creative, and beautiful!
What a happy accident! This is fantastic!!!
omigod, this looks so good
This looks divine! Great idea – going to give it a go tomorrow night in time for Christmas day. Definitely going to try and get it into a cocktail too!
This is genius. On ice cream and on some kind of olive oil orange cake with vanilla ice cream too 🙂