Blushing Spiced Holiday Wine

Fragrant and spicy sweet Glühwein is a favorite tradition of ours during the Christmas season. If you haven’t tried it before, imagine red wine that has been lightly sweetened and simmering with cinnamon, cloves, and orange slices. Like many others, I have my own version and arrive early to make it at my in-laws. For ease, I use a crockpot because it doesn’t take up stove top space and keeps the Glühwein warm. Glühwein is so simple to make and gives an old world flair to holiday celebrations with its European roots. However, even though traditional Glühwein is delicious, I wanted a lighter, white wine version paired with some autumn fruits to mix things up a bit. So, today’s post, Blushing Spiced Holiday Wine, is a lighter and very delicious version of Glühwein that is super easy to make.

Since I specifically wanted to use this drink at Thanksgiving to pair with the turkey, I began the drink with a Riesling base. Riesling is a sweet and slightly dry white wine which is a better pairing with Thanksgiving food. So, instead of using oranges I focused on apples because autumn and apples and Thanksgiving go together of course! This recipe is perfect for using some of those fresh fall apples, and there are so many delicious varieties! You can use slices from one type of apple or several which is what I like to do. Try a mix of heirloom apples ranging from sweet to tart. The apples add a nice flavor without turning the wine into apple cider. They also look festive and pretty in the mulled wine along with the spices and cranberries.

If you are wondering about the “blushing’ part in the name it comes from the slight pink color of the drink. Cranberries give the wine a bit of a pink color, so that it “blushes”. However, I didn’t want the cranberries to take over the flavor, so I only added a 1/4 cup of cranberries. The goal was to have a blend of delicious fall flavors. The cranberries add some tanginess to the drink and look cool bobbing around in the mulled wine.

One of the things I like best about this recipe is that it uses raw honey instead of sugar. Yes, sugar is still sugar whether it is honey or white, but I still prefer to use a cleaner sweetener over a refined one when I can. Honey also pairs well with the apples, lemon, and cranberries in taste and in my opinion, honey tastes more “autumn”. To balance the sweetness of the drink I also added lemon.

I love the spices in this drink! For simplicity I used only cinnamon, cloves and anise star, but you can certainly experiment with adding others such as allspice, nutmeg, ginger, etc. It is important to simmer this drink a bit to allow the spices to come through. And if you don’t like one of the spices then leave it out. For example, anise may not be your favorite, so you could just use cinnamon and cloves which is delicious on its own.

Try setting up a drink table with the blushing spiced holiday wine in a plugged-in crockpot to stay warm. Decorate the table and put out some cute mugs and candles. Hot spiced warm will give the party a cozy ambiance while your guests mingle. Thank you for stopping by. Enjoy your Blushing Spiced Holiday Wine!

Blushing Spiced Holiday Wine

1 bottle of Riesling (does not need to be expensive; in fact; I recommend the bargain wines for this)

3 Tbsps. of raw honey

3 cinnamon sticks

1 heaping tsp. of whole cloves

3 anise stars (optional; see note below)

1 cup of apple slices (I use a variety here)

1/2 lemon

1/4 cup of fresh or frozen cranberries

Note on anise star: anise star is a sweet licorice flavor that is commonly used in mulled wine; however, it can be strong. Feel free to leave out and just use cinnamon and cloves for an equally delicious drink!

Combine everything in a crockpot and cook on low for 2 hours. At this point turn the heat down to “keep warm”.