Mulled Cider

This is simple enough to be more of a procedure than a recipe, but since I've seen people spend a lot more time and money for less good results, I'm going to tell you about it anyway.

I do this pretty much any time in the winter that I'm having people over. You have to be able to buy cider without preservatives. For this purpose, pasteurization doesn't matter, but I'm sure the preservatives make a difference in the flavor, and they aren't at all necessary.

I always use the crock pot, because having the drinks out of my (small) kitchen is a good idea if I'm also doing any kind of cooking. But if you have the right traffic path, you can certainly use a large pot on the stove.

Then you need something like a tea ball or a small cloth bag or just a handkerchief or other cloth. Put all the whole spices in your cabinet into the center of the handkerchief or other receptacle and close it. (In the case of the handkerchief, you tie the opposite corners together.)

I think you should buy cinnamon sticks for this purpose if you don't have them. Otherwise, use whatever you have. Some possibilities:

• The little slivers of nutmeg that you can't grate any more on the grater without grating your fingers, too.
• Cloves
• Whole allspice
• Cardamom. (Take the seeds out of the pod, if you have the pods.)
• Star Anise

Put the cider and the spice ball or bag into your chosen pot. Bring to a boil and turn down to a very low simmer. If you do this before the guests arrive, you can offer them hot cider when they get there. They will appreciate this if it's a cold day. Otherwise, have it with dessert.

There are people who will sell you official cider mulling spices, and if you don't have any of the above items in your cupboard and can't think of anything you want to do with them except make mulled cider, that makes sense. But if you put cloves in ham or star anise in pork or fresh ground nutmeg in anything, you don't need the mulling spices too.

For some reason most of the recipes add sweetener, but I've never seen any necessity for it. Maybe they used to make cider with less sweet apples, and the recipe writer haven't noticed that plain cider is plenty sweet enough now.

If you're thinking about one-ingredient hard cider, this is the wrong way to go about it. After the boil and simmer, the cider doesn't ferment anything like as fast as the stuff straight from the store does.

Related posts:

1. Last day stew
2. Cyser making
3. Pain d'épice