Glögg!

After writing the post on mead making I realized that I still haven't told you about our glögg making! Glögg is a traditional alcoholic drink most commonly translated as "mulled wine", which is rather unfortunate since real glögg doesn't at all contain any wine!

My first attempt at making glögg was in 2009, when I came across a great recepy online. All credit goes to Eva i Höga at the odla discussion forum, who posted the recepy right HERE.

For those of you not familiar with Swedish, let me translate the recepy into english:

Dunderglögg 

5 liters of 'svagdricka' (comment below!)

5 raw potatoes, sliced

1 package of yeast (wine yeast or baking yeast)

1 package of carnations

1 package of cardamom seeds

ca 5cm of ginger, peeled and in small pieces

1 cinnamon stick

250-500 grams of raisins

2,5 kg of sugar

About the 'svagdricka': it is a traditional Swedish low-alcoholic malt beverage, translated as 'low alcoholic beer' but... well... it really doesn't taste like beer so I find that translation rather bad.All ingredients are mixed in a bucket, covered by a lid or some plastic foil and stored for 3-6 weeks (at least!). The finished glögg is then bottled, and though it needs no further time it will just get better if you store it!

And yes, it is alcoholic. I haven't been able to measure the percentage but I can tell you this much: you don't really realize just how much alcohol is in it until you're already getting drunk! :D

We've made glögg this way for two years now, getting it finished just before Christmas. Though the second batch tasted a bit different, as I accidentally added a whole package of aniseeds... Ooops! So the glögg of 2010 tastes a bit of lickerish, though it is still surprisingly good!  

Here you see two bottles of glögg, one from 2009 and one from 2010. Soooo tasty!