Ho ho ho

It was the Christmas social in our street today. Notionally from four until six, I finally cleared stuff from our front garden at 6.45. Not everyone in the street joined in, but enough did, and with enough goodwill and enthusiasm, to make it fun. Maybe we could make it an annual thing.

The glühwein and orangenpunsch seemed to go down well–the glühwein was more or less finished and the punsch well depleted. I had a couple of requests for the recipes, so:

Glühwein

• 6 bottles Merlot
• 6 Oranges
• 3 Lemons
• 6 Cinnamon sticks
• 6 Star Anise
• 20+ Cloves
• 12 Cardamom pods
• 600g caster sugar
• 200ml brandy
• 6 teaspoons vanilla essence

Orangenpunsch

• 6 bottles Riesling
• 1.2 litre orange juice
• 1.5 litre water
• 3 oranges
• 3 lemons
• 360g caster sugar
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 7 Star Anise
• 30 cloves
• 200ml dark rum.

I mixed both up around noon and let the ingredients infuse then heated them up to just below boiling before letting them simmer for about half an hour. I kept them heated over some tea lights.

Next time I make the orangenpunsch I’ll probably cut back the orange juice and water and increase the rum. For both of them, I’d likely cut back on the sugar too. The trick, and the fun, is to play with quantities and ingredients. Austrians, for example, may use schnapps or add amaretto. My test recipes (using one bottle of wine for each, was basically the above quantities divided by 6.

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Music: I thought of this song earlier during a Twitter exchange. Slade crop up every Christmas, of course, but Merry Christmas Everybody! is not why I remember them. Mama Weer All Crazee Now was the first single I bought back in 1972 (the second was Jean Genie). And then there was this, with Don Powell’s casually great drum intro and Jim Lea’s efficient, melodic bassline. Far Far Away.