Warm up winter nights with toasty joolz and mulled wine!

We celebrated a friend's 33⅓ birthday yesterday afternoon (happy birthday Adam) which included lots of great live music, great friends and a spectacular vegan cake-feast.

It was a breezy, wintry, drizzly day, and so of course we were standing around talking about ways to warm up. Thank goodness in the course of that conversation my lovely friends Uwe & Ursula mentioned mulled wine - which reminded me that I'd been meaning to make mulled wine for AGES! I popped home to rifle through the pantry (luckily we live next door) and came up with something that seemed to please my party compadres.
Mulled Wine a la Airdrie
5 oranges
1 x 750ml bottle shiraz (mine was a Brock's Reef 2006 Shiraz from the Limestone Coast in South Australia)
1 x 375ml bottle boysenberry liqueur (picked up from the Big Strawberry when I was last headed north on the Goulburn Valley Hwy)
cinnamon bark
garam masala spice mix (I used MasterFoods brand, which includes pepper, caraway, fennel, cardamom, cinnamon & cloves)
handful of dried apricots, chopped
sugar to taste

Juice four of the oranges, pouring both the juice and pulp into a heavy-based saucepan. Cut the fifth orange into quarters, then thick 1cm slices, add to juice & pulp. Empty both bottles of alcohol into the saucepan, along with a generous spoonful each of the cinnamon & garam masala spice mix, and throw in the chopped apricots. Heat until warmed through, take a sip, and then add sugar to taste, stirring until its dissolved. Apparently this beverage is best kept warm (just on the edge of simmering, rather than boiling) for several hours to allow the flavours to develop, but I'm afraid we drank ours almost immediately. Serve in mis-matched teacups to warm friends!

In honour of the successful warming, this necklace has been named 'Mulled Wine'! The colours and the chunkiness remind me very much of that toasty drink I made last night.
Photographer: Berle Mu, MUA: Celeste @ Makeup Creations, Model: Beata @ Scene
The necklace was created using hand-made resin beads that I've poured in black, purple and gold. The gold ones have upcycled tealeaves embedded in them. Tea's great for keeping warm too! There's only the one so click on the add to cart button straight away if you're keen to own your very own 'Mulled Wine' necklace!

Warm up winter nights with toasty joolz and mulled wine!