Oh, Those Tasty Beverages!

Sipping something warm and spicy during the winter holidays has always been a treat. For some it is a special blend of coffee, others hot chocolate.

I decided even though the weather outside is not frightful but wonderfully warm, I would go ahead and share with you a few of my favorite drink recipes.

The tea and mull can be made up to give as a gift for a teacher, co-worker or even a neighbor. You can place the mixes in a mason jar or in a plastic sandwich size bag stuck down into a mug.

The first recipe has been around for ages. I remember the first time my mom made this and gave it to us kids. The first thought was “Oh what is she giving us now!” Needless to say after the first sip, it became a favorite in our house.

I made this one year for the women I worked with in probation. I had to laugh at one of the women. She was so tickled I had made this. She had not had the tea since she was child and had always loved the taste it. These are times when making your gifts are so special. 

Russian Friendship Tea:

This tea does not really taste like tea, you could say it tastes like hot orange cider. It does have tea in it, but the Tang, lemonade, and spices overwhelm the black tea taste.

The recipe makes 4 cups of mix. Single serving would be 2 to 3 teaspoons of mix into a mug of hot water.

Ingredients:

1½ cups of white sugar

2 cups of instant orange tang

½ cup Lipton Instant Iced Tea Mix, sweetened

1 envelope of Kool-Aid lemon aid, unsweetened

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:

Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container.

Wine/Cider Mulls

This is a wonderful way to give a mull as gift. The mull itself is stuffed into half an orange peel, then decorated by pressing whole cloves and cinnamon stick into the middle. Wrap the half orange in a clear cellophane and present with a bottle of red wine.

 For non-alcoholic drinkers like myself, give with a good jug of apple cider.

Make sure you include the recipe for Mulled Wine found below!

This recipe will make two mulls

Ingredients:

1 medium orange, cut in half and pulp removed

½ cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons allspice

½ teaspoon nutmeg

2- 2” cinnamon sticks

Whole cloves

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200°F

Place a ball of foil inside the half-orange ball and place upside down on a baking sheet. Dry in oven 4 to 5 hours. Remove foil and dry an additional 15 minutes.

In a small bowl combine brown sugar, allspice and nutmeg, divide

Pack half of mix into a orange half.Decorate with cloves and cinnamon stick, repeat.

Recipe for Mulled Wine/Cider:

Place 1 mull and bottle of red wine, in a large saucepan

Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Serve hot

The next recipe comes from a friend on writers/readers group. Thanks Fatin!

Gingerbread Spiced Coffee Syrup

"This is delightful spicy syrup that you can use to spice up coffee, tea, apple cider, you name it, it's all good! Add a tablespoon to your favorite beverage, use it in whipped cream, or brush it on cakes. Drizzle it on yogurt, oatmeal, or pancakes - the possibilities are endless!"

 Ingredients:

  1 cup water

  1 cup sugar

  1 tablespoon honey

  1 (1 inch) piece fresh ginger root, sliced

  1 cinnamon stick, broken into large pieces

8 whole cloves

1/2 teaspoon whole allspice berries

1/2 teaspoon whole peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions:

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, combine water, sugar, and honey. Stir in ginger, cinnamon stick, cloves, allspice, peppercorns, and nutmeg; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes, and then strain through a fine mesh sieve, or double layer cheesecloth.

Spiced Coffee

It is no secret I have a love hate relationship with coffee. Growing up, my bedroom was closest to the kitchen. My parents loved to grind their own coffee beans, before grinding your own was fashionable. Every morning I woke to beans being poured into the antique crank coffee grinder. The grinding seemed to take hours in "kid" time, in actuality it took no longer than five minutes.

I took my first job when I was a junior in high school and for Christmas, I thought I would get my parents something special without saying "Hey can I have money to go Christmas shopping?" Poking around Sun Valley Mall, I came across Williams Sonoma. My mom loved to shop this store for all of her gourmet club meetings. I had my "A Christmas Story" moment when there in the window was a Braun electric coffee grinder! Electric had to be quicker method of getting those dang beans ground so I could sleep, right?

Christmas morning came with happy parents laughing I did not like the hand grinder and bought them an electric one. There I sat smiling ear to ear, because on December 26, I was going to sleep in past six! I woke the next morning to a sound, which could be compared to a locomotive running wide open, the steam whistle blowing while chugging through a convent! Did I mention I hate coffee?

For me to drink coffee it has to be 60% dairy, 30% sugar, and 10% coffee. I have to kill the taste of the coffee somehow. I still do not understand how something that smells so wonderful, tastes so bad!

When my husband was stationed in Texas, I worked in a county probation department. Where I became friends with Terra. Even though, we were born one day and at least fifteen years apart we clicked like we had known each other for years. For our birthdays, we would bring each other a Starbucks Venti Carmel Frappuccino. One day Terra let me try her coffee with cinnamon in it, hmm not too bad... but I still needed it fully loaded with sugar and milk.

Yesterday morning after enjoying a slice of Pumpkin Bread, I decided to try something. I had made an 8-cup pot of coffee earlier, (I told you I love the smell of coffee.) I threw out the coffee filter and grounds, then added a fresh filter to the basket. To the basket, I added 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground cloves (I would suggest cutting the cloves back to half a teaspoon.) I also added something I knew would not work but I tried it anyway. I added 1/2 cup of white sugar into the mixture. Next I poured the coffee from the carafe back into the coffee maker and re-brewed it (I can see my dad saying here "oh yuck." Nevertheless, in reality I did not re-brew the coffee since it did not go through the grounds again.) The sugar did not work that well, since it would not dissolve quick enough to make it through the filter without me having to stir it.

Minus the sugar mess, the coffee came out tasting wonderful. The spices gave it a warm rich taste that made me think of winter. I would pair it with the Pumpkin Bread Recipe or even Gingerbread during the holidays for something extra special.