Christmas Glogg With Brandy and Port
Updated June 10, 2024
- Total Time
- 30 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- Peel of 1 large orange
- 2tablespoons whole cardamom pods
- 2bottles red wine
- 1bottle ruby port
- 1pint Cognac or brandy
- ⅓cup light brown sugar, more to taste
- 12whole cloves
- 3cinnamon sticks
- Raisins and sliced almonds for garnish (optional)
Preparation
- Step 1
Using metal tongs, hold the orange peel over a flame until it starts to singe and brown in spots. Put it in a large pot.
- Step 2
Using the flat side of a knife or cleaver, or a rolling pin or mallet, crack and bruise the cardamom pods. Add to the pot with the orange peel. Add the wine, port, brandy, sugar, cloves and cinnamon. Gently simmer over low heat until the whole house smells like spice, about 20 minutes. Taste and add more sugar if you want it sweeter. Serve garnished with raisins and almonds if you like.
Private Notes
Comments
I'm usually one hundred percent into Melissa Clark recipes, but I'm a little scandalized by glogg that takes 30 minutes. In my experience as a Scandinavian American who has encountered myriad variations of the recipe, it should take a day and a night (or vice verse). If not a day, night & day. At the very least, you should start it with your coffee in the morning before you serve it in the evening. That much is universally held sacred on this otherwise hotly contested topic.
Please elaborate. Do you warm the glogg for several hours or make the glogg and let the flavors meld before heating?
My mother told me the story of preparing this for a holiday party back in the 1970's. It was during a snowstorm, and as each wind blown guest arrived, she handed them a cup of glogg to warm them. Everyone was dozing off within an hour. Use caution at parties!
This is not how you make Glögg. I'm Swedish, born and raised. The recipe is wrong. To make traditional Glögg many things has to change: You also have to add: dried ginger, whole cinnamon sticks and whole cloves. Add the spices to a bottle of vodka and then let the spices soak in the vodka for 14 days. After that time you make a syrup and then strain the vodka. Mix syrup, vodka and red wine in a saucepan and let it sit for at least one hour, then warm it but don't let it boil. Never boil!
Graduate student, New Years Eve party, 40 years ago, last remark heard before sinking into a deep sleep: "Glogg makes you groggy"
We make this too every year following in the steps of my Swedish grandfather. It’s true you need to start it earlier and not hurry. I usually add the cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange peel, with raisins and almonds(raw, not roasted) to the pot with water and brown sugar, and simmer that for a good long time, at least four hours or longer if you have time. Then I bring it to wherever I’m going and add the alcohol and let that simmer longer before we imbibe.