Christmas Homemade Gifts: Mulled Wine Spices

Its going to be Christmas time soon! And my dear friends Lydia and Eleni thought about making personal and homemade gifts for our friends this year. What can be more Christmas-y than spices?

The babes, Lydia and Eleni. With the mulled wine spice mix!

We went downtown to Evripidou, to the famous spice shops, and bought a lot of spices: allspice, cinnamon, cardomom, cloves, nutmeg and crystallized ginger, among others. We also bought empty teabags, so we could fill them with the spices.

Spices galore!

We spent 2 weekends bashing and packaging the spices into mixes over at Lydia's place. We made a Mulled Wine mix, and a Chai Latte mix. 

Bashing nutmeg

Of course the cinnamon and the nutmeg needed a bit of bashing into smaller pieces. You can use a mortar and pestle, or put them in a freezer bag and use a rolling pin and beat the bag until the spices are broken.

Crystallized Ginger

The ginger also needs to be chopped into smaller pieces. This may a bit time consuming, but with friends and chatter, time flew by and we had chopped ginger ready to be mixed.

Mulled Wine Spices Mix

Ingredients & supplies: (makes 20-25 bags)

100g of cinnamon sticks

5 nutmegs

200g of cloves

200g of allspice

100g of crystallized ginger

Peel from 3 oranges, dried in the oven

Peel from 3 lemons, dried in the oven

Empty teabags

Cooking twine

1. Mix the ingredients together in a big bowl.
2. Fill the teabags with 2 heaped tablespoons of the spice mix. Tie with the cooking twine.
3. Package in small plastic bags (optional), and its all ready for you to gift them to your friends and family! Don't forget to include the instructions(below) with your gift.

Instructions: How to make mulled wine
Combine 1/3 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a big pot. Simmer on medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, add 1 bottle of red wine and 1 bag of spice mix. Simmer gently on low heat until the wine is hot. Remove and discard the bag, before serving. Best to serve hot!

Mulled wine gift bags

How I made mine at home:

I added a few extra pieces of fresh orange peel when I made the wine, as a taste test. I liked it more orange-y, but George didn't. The result was a rather fruity and Sangria-like mulled wine. If you like Sangria, add more orange peel. If you don't, just stick to the normal spice mix.