Mulled Wine – Not To Be Confused with Mold Wine

Mulled wine is a perfect drink for the holidays, but be careful how you say “mulled wine.” When I told my friends about the mulled wine I was making, invariably they would hear “mold wine” and get grossed out.

Mulled Wine vs. Mold Wine

Mulled wine should never be confused with mold wine.

Mulled wine is wine simmered with spices like cinnamon, allspice, and cloves, served hot. Mulled wine is delicious and nice to drink while settling in by the fire.

Mold wine is wine made in prison. I know this because I read an excerpt from the book “You are Going to Prison” on the blog The Sneeze (this must be some book – it costs $60 for a used copy on Amazon):

One of the problems you have right away with making wine in prison is the difficulty getting yeast. It’s a strictly forbidden item and you might not be able to get any. In this case you can improvise the by using slices of bread, preferably moldy (but not dry) and preferably inside a sock for easier straining.

The steps to making prison wine (mold wine) and the success of that endeavor are detailed – with photos – on The Sneeze. If you want something good to drink, the steps to making mulled wine are below.

Mulled Wine Recipe

I got the mulled wine recipe from Steph at A Year of Crockpotting. I’ve reprinted it below with a few changes from the original.

Serves 6-8 (or 4ish if you are going to use some it in mulled wine cupcakes)

• 2 bottles dry red wine (Go for the cheap stuff)
• 1 C orange juice
• 2 clementines (You could use any orange, but I happened to have a box of clementines on hand)
• 3/4 C white sugar (I forgot to add the sugar the first time and it was nasty. Don’t make this mistake!)
• 1/2 t allspice
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 4 whole cloves

1. Open the wine and dump it in the crockpot (use a 6 quart or larger crockpot).
2. Pour in the orange juice.
3. Stir in the sugar, and add the ground spices.
4. Float the cinnamon sticks and whole cloves on top.
5. Slice the clementines into rings, and float the rings on top.
6. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours, or on low for 4. You can continue to cook on low for much longer than that and it keeps getting better. We had some in the evening and then left it on low overnight and had some more the next day.
7. Ladle into mugs.

Mulled Wine Cupcakes

This mulled wine was used in some tasty mulled wine cupcakes.