Feuerzangenbowle is the featured cocktail for Ep41: Kate’s weird cookie anxiety (aka La Festa di San Silvestro). It is a German mulled wine often consumed during the holiday season and can be found at German Christmas markets. Feuerzangenbowle (pronounced FOY-yer-tsang-en-bowl-eh) translates to fire tongs punch. Want to know more, be sure to check out episode 41!

Ingredients:

2 oranges

2 lemons

8 1⁄2 cups dry red wine

3 cinnamon sticks

5 cloves

1 dash ground ginger

1⁄2 lb sugar loaf (sugar cubes can work) *

2 cups brown rum (at least 54% alcohol/108 proof)

Directions:

1. Wash the oranges and lemons thoroughly, pat dry and cut into slices or wedges.
2. In a large pot add red wine, oranges, lemons, cinnamon and cloves. Heat up slowly and do not let the mixture boil.
3. Remove the pot from heat and place it on a heating surface, stove or flame, that you can serve from (which you can place on the table, like the one you use for Fondue). Add ginger.
4. Place the sugar loaf above the red wine mixture (about 1 inch above the surface). You can use a special “fire tongs”, which is made for this purpose. You can also a kind of wire netting to place the sugar loaf on.
5. Soak the sugar loaf with rum and light up the alcohol. The sugar will melt and drip into the wine. Add rum (little by little) to keep the fire burning until the sugar loaf is used up.
6. After the sugar loaf is used up stir gently and serve. Add lemon or orange wedges as a garnish if desired.

NOTE on equipment: there is a special equipment used in Germany, especially the fire tongs. You can make your own. It is important that the sugar can drop into the wine and that the sugar loaf cannot fall down or that the hot (melted) sugar can drop outside the pot.

* You can make your own zuckerhut by packing damp sugar into the mold of your choice, but it’s a fiddly process that involves drying overnight.