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Glögg

Let’s talk a little about glögg.

Glögg is a traditional Swedish drink enjoyed in the winter time. It’s a mulled mixture of wines and brandy that I have been making for guests of our caroling party for many years now. We drink it upon our return from our trip singing at the neighbors.

My motivation in making glögg does not stem from heritage (I’m Irish-Lebanese) unless you count a taste for alcoholic beverages from both sides. No, it began when I first thought I’d try to make traditional wassail. After looking at some of the recipes for wassail, I didn’t think it sounded very good. Subsequently, I see that people have varied their recipes for wassail so widely that my glögg recipe probably qualifies under the most lax definition. But back on that first caroling party year, I stumbled upon a glögg recipe and it sounded a lot more appetizing. So glögg became our tradition as well.

I am no glögg expert, but we do have a regular visitor to the party who is from Sweden and she’s assisted me in verifying that the end product is glögg. This is reassurance I need, as I’d never had the stuff before I started making it.

For folks who have asked me to provide my recipe: The secret is, I don’t follow a recipe but very loosely. I started from a recipe and wandered. However, I think glögg is really good, and it deserves to be enjoyed more on cold winter nights. So how about we do it this way. Since I can’t exactly tell you how I make the stuff, because it varies, I’ll write up a recipe that’s as close as possible and we can talk about that.

Glögg

1 bottle of port
1 bottle of dry red wine
1/2 bottle of sherry

4 cinnamon sticks
12 whole cloves
4 peeled cardamom seeds
one whole orange peel (and the juice)
one whole lemon peel (and the juice)
1 cup raisins

2 cups of brandy
1 cup sugar

1 cup blanched, peeled almonds (optional)
4 dried figs, chopped (optional)

Instructions:

Combine the wines and the spices (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, orange peel/juice, lemon peel/juice) and raisins. Bring to a simmer, but keep from boiling.

Separately, combine the sugar and half the brandy. Heat this mixture until the sugar becomes a syrup. Some people caramelize the sugar, while I haven’t tried it this way, it sounds great.

Combine the syrup with the wines and all and let that sit over a very low flame for at least an hour. After you’ve mulled it like that, you can take it off the flame and add the remaining brandy. At this point it can be stored in the fridge for a few weeks.

Before serving, warm it back up in a saucepan or crockpot with the figs and almonds. It’s served hot.

Variations:

I haven’t always found whole cardamom. I have resorted to using the powdered stuff and it seemed to work OK.

You can use more brandy than I have described here. If you do, you might do without the sherry. I’m told by Kari they use aquavit instead of brandy in Sweden. I added vodka one year and it was far too alcoholic. Got a bit carried away.

I don’t usually caramelize the sugar. In fact, sometimes I just add the sugar with the spices and add all the brandy at the end. Don’t tell anyone.

And that, pretty much, is glögg. Burke-style.

Side note about cardamom. I only recently realized that it is the predominant flavor in Swedish Fish.

Posted by James at December 19, 2004 8:40 PM
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