Scandinavian Christmas, Day 9

Day 9! Today we will hear from Lina, a Swede living in Borås who makes one mean mug of glögg. She's going to give us a little history lesson about glögg and, don't worry, she'll share her favorite glögg recipe too!

Lina and I met 2003 (wow, 7 years ago already?!) when I was studying in Sweden. She later moved to Chicago for a while and we spent many Fridays having coffee and eating lots of Scandinavian-style sweets (chokladbollar, anyone?), good times.

The word glögg comes from the old Swedish word of ‘glödga’ that translates to heat. In the middle of the/late nineteenth century (1890’s) glögg became a Swedish Christmas tradition. Many wine sellers had their own special recipes, which they would bottle and sell with labels, often with a "tomte" motif.

Today Swedes drink about 5 million liters of glögg every Christmas! We usually start drinking it on the first of advent, which just so happened to occur on my birthday this year - Nov. 28th!

These days you can drink more modern flavors of glögg , like licorice, lingonberry or apple. At the Systembolaget there are new flavors to try every year!

source

Glögg

adapted from receptfavoriter

Gently heat a bottle of red wine (preferably a Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, or Pinotage) to 55-60 degrees °C on the stovetop. At 78°C the alcohol will start to evaporate so make sure it doesn’t come to a boil unless you want non-alcoholic Glögg.

Add this spices:

1 piece dried orange peel (or fresh)

1 or 2 cinnamon sticks

4 cloves

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1 ml spoon of ginger

1 ml spoon of nutmeg.

Then add . 5 dl of sugar along with 1-2 dl port or cognac (if you want it strong). When it reaches 55 C it's ready to drink. Serve with raisins and chopped almonds!

Thank you so much, Lina!!