Glug is a traditional scandinavian christmas drink. It’s a type of spiced wine. It has similar roots to gluhwein that you might get at a winter market, but that stuff tastes like shit compared to this. It’s just a sad imitation.
This isn’t my recipe, this is apparently how my grandfather made it. I never met the guy, but my parents had a bottle of it in the back of the liquor cabinet for years, and once I took a sip of it. Blew my fucking mind. I finally decided to take a crack at replicating it. I don’t know if it’s perfect, but it’s damn good.
Usually I make things in large quantities because I don’t mind eating the same thing for several days. In this case, you make it in a large batch because it’s intended that everyone drinks it all day for christmas. It’s also meant to be shared, so if you have some left over, give it away! I guarantee they will not be disappointed.
Also? Some people freak the fuck out when I tell them that there is everclear in this. Those people are stupid. As part of making this, you are going to simmer wine with spices for a few hours. At that point, the alcohol is gone, so you have to kick it back up. If you follow this recipe, then the resulting drink should be about twice as strong as wine. Roughly on a level with port or sherry. It will fuck you up if you drink too much of it (I can personally vouch for that) but it’s not like you get wasted off of one sip.
Lastly, the official recipe I have calls for bottles of claret. Claret is not a wine. It’s an old term for a wine that originated from the bordeaux region of france. So you can use merlot, cabernet sauvignon, malbec, or two other things that I forget, but google might be your friend here. With all the spices that you are going to throw at this, quality doesn’t really matter, and neither does the wine type. I used a couple handles of yellow tail cab, came out great. Go cheap on the wine is what I’m saying.
Ingredients
4 750 ml bottles “claret”
1/4 cup green cardamom pods (If you just buy whole cardamom in the supermarket, that should be it. if you are buying from a spice store, it turns out that cardamom comes in types, and you want green not black)
2 tablespoons whole cloves
5-6 cinnamon sticks
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1-2 cups sugar, to taste (white sugar or brown sugar, it doesn’t really matter)
1 750 ml bottle everclear
Directions
Pour the wine into a large pot and add the cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, raisins, and almonds. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Let simmer for a few hours (2-3 hours) to infuse the wine with the spices and boil off the alcohol.
Add a cup of sugar and stir to combine. Once the sugar is dissolved, turn off the heat and let it cool for half an hour. Then add the everclear and stir to combine. You want to let it cool because if you don’t, when you pour in the everclear, since alcohol has a lower boiling point, it will flash boil as soon as you add it, and you’ve just lost a bunch of alcohol. It doesn’t really impact the finished product that much except that it won’t have the kick that you want.
Now, taste it. If the alcohol taste comes through too hard, if it’s too harsh, go ahead and add half a cup of sugar and stir to combine. The sugar won’t dissolve if it’s cooled off too much, so you may need to put the pot back on low heat until it does. Keep tasting and adding sugar until it’s where you want it. It will probably take a full second cup of sugar to get the balance right.
Kill the heat and let it sit. It’s done. If you want to bottle it for later, run it through a strainer to remove the whole spices, but otherwise just ladle out mugs of it as you want it. Its best room temperature or chilled, given the high alcohol content. If you heat it up, the everclear really starts to bite.
Enjoy!
eatbensmeat 