Fuse Imports

Hot apple cider is a drink that gives us a certain feel linked to cold winter nights and the festivities of the holiday seasons. You can enjoy this exact feeling in a grown-up version by using mead, which is wine made with honey, and some mulling spices. It is a fantastic and delicious hot drink that will add a little warmth to your holiday festivities and it is a little known treat that your friends and guests will rave about. Mulling is the centuries old tradition of infusing spices into warmed up beverages and the typical spices used are allspice, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, and various fruit peels like orange or apple. Being a centuries old drink there is no better beverage than mead is for mulling. You can buy mulling spices in grocery stores or online retailers and in variou sunless tan s quantities ranging from 8-ounce containers to individually wrapped tea bags. Or you can make your own mulling spices to fit your taste by mixing equal portions of any or all of the spices except for the nutmeg; limit it to about half the quantity of any other ingredient. If you use 1 teaspoon of each ingredient use about one half teaspoon of the nutmeg. And with mulling you should experiment by adding amounts of apple peel, orange peel or even lemon peel. Add anything you think will give that holiday taste. Mulling is very easy to do and you can follow any process that you would normally do for making tea. The process I follow is to wrap a couple of teaspoons in cheese cloth or spice bags and let it steep in a half bottle of mead while being heated on the stove. But I don?t bring it to a boil.