As the festive season kicks off, what better way to warm up than with a glass of mulled wine!  Here is a tasty recipe without the high amounts of sugar, but with lots of great flavours!

This recipe was inspired by Jamie Oliver with a few alterations, where I have excluded the sugar. Instead I have used raisins but if you want it sweeter, try more raisins, dates, some honey or your preferred natural sweetener.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 2 clementines and the peel
• Peel of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tbsp. raisins
• 10 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 10 gratings of whole nutmeg – or 1 tsp dried nutmeg
• 1 tsp dried cinnamon
• 1 whole vanilla pod, halved (or 1 tsp vanilla essence)
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 star anise
• I bottle red wine

1. Put the raisins in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the peel and the squeezed segments of the clementines and lemon.
2. Add the cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and nutmeg. Throw in your halved vanilla pod and stir in just enough red wine to cover the sugar.
3. Let this simmer until the fruit starts to dissolve into the red wine and then bring to the boil. Keep on a rolling boil for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until you’ve got a beautiful thick syrup. (This is done first to create a wonderful flavour base by really getting the sugar and spices to infuse and blend well with the wine. It’s important to make a syrup base first because, since it needs to be quite hot, if you add all the wine in at this stage, the alcohol would be burnt off).
4.  When your syrup is ready, turn the heat down to low and add your star anise and the rest of the wine. Gently heat the wine and after around 5 minutes, when it’s warm, ladle it into glasses and serve.