1809 Glühwein - A Vintage Recipe for German Mulled Wine
This recipe for mulled wine, inspired by an 1809 German nursing manual, is deliciously infused with warm spices, bright citrus, and the spirit of an old-fashioned Christmas
Wine, as you may know, is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages known to humans and recipes for heating and infusing wine with different herbs & spices goes back to at least the 2nd-Century BCE (or at least the first written recipe, meaning that people were making mulled wine for much longer than that).
A member of some ancient Mediterranean pantheon heating wine with an iron rod
Different cultures around the world have different versions and variants of mulled wine, but one of the most “classic” versions is the German Glühwein which translates to “glowing wine” or “smoldering wine”. While the more cozy, folk etymology states that the name comes from the warm, glowing feeling one gets when they have a mug of Glühwein, the actual origin of the name comes from the method of heating the wine: over smoldering or lightly-glowing coals (as opposed to being boiled, like a tea).
Glühwein has been a mainstay of Christmas markets in German-speaking areas of Europe for hundreds of years, but I feel like with the rise in popularity of European-style Christmas markets in cities around the US (including here in Saint Paul, Minnesota), Glühwein is really having its moment!
Glühwein + my hand at the Union Square Depot European Christmas Market in Saint Paul, MN
Of course, these days, you can buy pre-packaged mulling spices, and bottles of pre-mulled wine, but that’s not how we do things here at Gen-Eat-Alogy! Unless I start selling pre-packaged mulling spices, then that’s exactly how we do things at Gen-Eat-Alogy! But for now, I’m going to talk about Glühwein as they would make it in 19th century Germany!
Now, if you read German Wikipedia, for some reason they state that, “The earliest surviving recipe for mulled wine in Central Germany comes from August Josef Ludwig von Wackerbarth on December 11, 1834…” and that may be true for Central Germany, but there are definitely older recipes, including one I’m taking inspiration from, which was written in 1809.
While I will share the original recipe, I made some modifications after running a few tests, which was common (and generally encouraged by cookbook authors) at the time. The wide variety of Glühwein recipes found in vintage, German cookbooks would indicate that there wasn’t a “standard” method, but rather that people would make whatever recipe closest conformed to their personal tastes. Although, in true German fashion, many of the cookbook authors encourage their readers to be frugal and deliberate with their seasonings, while still cooking to the tastes of their families or clients rather than following recipes to the letter.
“My way of cooking requires little spice, except pepper, cloves, and cinnamon; but every cook is cook is free to use [spices] , I will note with each dish what kind of spice can be added to it.” - Anna Maria Neudecker, Die Bayerische Köchin in Böhmen, 1853
And here’s a twist: this recipe doesn’t even come from a cookbook! It comes from the 1809 edition of Anleitung zur allgemeinen Krankenpflege: ein Handbuch für Krankenwärter or, General Nursing Guidance: A Handbook for Nurses by Georg Greiner. He states that a patient can be given a cup of this every 2 – 3 hours to refresh themselves. Sounds better than Nyquil, to be honest.
See!? 1809! See that German Wikipedia!? Sehen sie das!?
So, the original recipe is as follows:
A pot of wine [~1 liter] is boiled with a Quentchen [4.5g] of cinnamon or a little more cinnamon blossoms with cloves, cardamoms, mace, half a Quentchen [2.25g] of each with sugar, about a quarter or half a pound [140 - 280g], strained and mixed with a few egg yolks, which are previously mixed with a little hot whisk and are dissolved. The patient can often have a full cup of this to refresh himself or a half-full cup every two to three hours.
I did try making this recipe exactly, including tempering a couple egg yolks with some of the heated wine, and then mixing the yolks into the Glühwein. The result was…interesting. Egg yolks were a common thickener in the 18th and 19th-Centuries (see my 1816 German Hot Chocolate recipe), so their inclusion in the recipe isn’t altogether unusual; however, I found that the yolks ended up detracting from the spices, and thickened wine has a mouthfeel that, while not unpleasant, would be unusual to many modern palates.
That being the case, I decided to modify the recipe a bit: I increased the amounts of spices, omitted the egg yolks, and added some citrus peel. Using lemon or orange peel was common in Glühwein recipes throughout the 1800s, is pretty much ubiquitous in modern recipes, and honestly is one of my favorite flavors in mulled wine. However, it is missing from Greiner’s original 1809 recipe.
A few random notes:
The wine needs to be heated to between 150 - 170°F (65 .5- 76.5°C), but not above 180°F . The alcohol will begin cooking off around 180°F, and that’s not the goal of a proper Glühwein.
19th-century Glühwein recipes use a lot more sugar than modern recipes; in fact, Greiner’s original recipe calling for 1/4 - 1/2 pound of sugar per liter is actually on the low side. Many vintage recipes use as much as a pound of sugar per liter of wine, and these are often the older Bavarian and Prussian pounds, which are the equivalent to 500g or more! So, in my recipe, I’ve toned down the sugar content, and it’s still higher than most recipes these days.
The best wines for Glühwein are dry to semi-dry reds. Think Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Grenache/Garnacha, even Chianti or red Zinfandel. Just don’t use anything you wouldn’t want to drink on its own, but don’t use anything too expensive either. There’s no point in buying a $200 bottle of wine just to add a bunch of sugar & other flavors to it.
You can definitely make Glühwein from white wine as well: something like a dry Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, or even a Moscato would work.
If you don’t have any blades of mace, you can use ground mace or nutmeg.
As always, the amounts I list in the recipe are mostly guidelines, please feel free to adjust them based on your personal preference!
1809 Glühwein (German Mulled Wine)
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
- Common red wines for Glühwein: Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Syrah, Merlot, Grenache/Garnacha, Chianti, or red Zinfandel
- Common white wines for Glühwein: dry Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Muscato
- 19th-Century recipes for Glühwein use a lot more sugar than most modern recipes, so feel free to reduce the sugar amount if it's too sweet for you.
