Gluwein (glow wine) and Crabbing.

 

Fall is here. That means two things. One, it means we can start making Gluwein and two, Dungeness Crabs Season is upon us.  And so, I was sitting here at work thinking about those two things and I decided to Google around if there were places in SF that serve gluwein and all I got were a bunch of recipes. What I saw was shit. Like, every damn recipe asked for a cup o’ sugar and lemon to be added to boiling red wine and let to simmer for an hour. Maybe I’m alone on this one but all the gluwein I had over in Garmisch was sweetened with honey and had oranges in it. So in the case that somebody wants to reminisce about Garmisch Winters (and getting wasted and waking up in strange room is not an option at the moment), here’s a REAL gluwein recipe.

 

It’s all about process.

 

 

  A bottle of cheap red wine (merlot wild do).

  1 or 2 oranges (slice up the rinds and squeeze the whole damn thing into the pot)

  1/4 – 1 cup honey (depending on taste)

  Couple cinnamon sticks

  Whole cloves (start with like 5 and add more if desired)

  Dash of nutmeg (not a big dash)

 

2 cups water (about- in fact it doesn’t really matter. Don’t go measuring exactly two cups, ‘cause that’s just silly. Use 2 cups. Use 4 cups. Doesn’t matter. It’s all to taste.)

 

The process.

 

Place water in large “clean” pot. Place all ingredients except wine into pot. Heat at a low simmer for like 30 minutes to an hour, making sure you’re not running out of water. Might wanna keep a lid on the thing too.

 

 Now we add the wine. Stir it up and just heat it to where it’s all nice and hot again and kill the heat once that’s achieved. Now test it. Taste like shit? Yeah, thought it might. So, go and add a little more honey if it’s too tart. If it has too much of an alcohol flavor just turn the heat back on. It’ll evaporate the alcohol before the water in the product, that’s why I say to not to boil the wine for too long, so as not to loose that second heat a sip will give. If you wanna kick up the alcohol content and not have it taste like shit just some brandy.

 

 I like to add Triple-Sec and make a tasty bastard child out of it. I love that wicked super orangey goodness. The inspiration for this actually came from someone else ruining a perfectly good pot of gluwein. I was chillin’ in my room at the Abrams and Scotty Graham stops by to say hi. Little did I know he was already in Evil-Scotty mode. Before long I had turned away and looked out the window and he had added about an entire bottle a Jaeger to it in the hopes of “fixing it”. Of course, he didn’t tell me ‘til I had another glass and damn near vomited. Well, we couldn’t waste it. So we drank the whole pot then I decided to start fresh with a new batch. 30 minutes later I had some pretty tasty gluhwein and Scott goes bitching about how it’s not hard enough and there’s no kick to it and I’m trying to explain that it’s not supposed to have a massive kick. Anyhow. I lost. I agreed to add something with just one stipulation; I got to pick the booze that would ruin the second batch of my tasty gluhwein. I choose Triplesec and I choose wisely. It was stupid tasty. I can’t say it helped us get drunk ‘cause we were already plastered from the Jaeg.

 

Anyhow, yeah, add triplesec and brandy if you want to get fucked up AND enjoy a nice winter treat.

 

 

As for crabbin’ the Pacifica pier gets pretty damn cold in the evening so adding gluhwein to the situation fixes that nicely.