Mulled Wine (Kuvano vino)

My first memories of mulled wine are related to street protests in Belgrade, '96-'97. It was around this time of the year, it was very cold winter, and my then boyfriend and now husband and I spent the most of the time on the street as demonstrators. Almost every time after the stage speeches of the opposition leaders, we would have ended up in nearby cafe "Srpska reč" ("Serbian Word") drinking mulled wine to worm ourselves up. It felt so good after the freezing cold.

Those were tough times, but I recall it as an exciting period of my life. Few nights ago my hubby and I were remembering it while drinking mulled wine. We don't live in Belgrade any more, but memories of years spent there still exist.

In the winter time, mulled wine is popular everywhere in Europe. In my opinion, there is only one winter alcohol drink as good as this one - and that's warm slivovitz (a.k.a plum brandy, šljivovica).

You need for two people:

2 cups red wine 

1 cup water

1 orange, peel it, keep the peel and slice the rest of orange

2 tablespoons honey

2 whole anise stars

Pinch of nutmeg

5 whole cloves

5 whole black peppercorns

Steps:

Warm the wine with water in small pan. Add orange peel and sliced fruit, anise stars, nutmegs, cloves, black peppercorns and honey. When wine starts to boil lower the heat and simmer it for 10 minutes. Serve mulled wine hot.

I like to eat orange so I serve the wine with orange slices.