Oh. My. Glogg.

Did you know that, technically speaking, I'm half Swedish? Yup. My family is full of Danielsen's, Erickson's, and all other form of -son's ending Scandinavian last names you can think of (not that you'd ever guess it from my dark hair and eyes, but judging a book by its cover, and all that). Ok, so I've never been to Sweden and can't speak a word of the language, but as far as the genes go, a whopping whole half of them come from the land of Thor and Odin.

And last Friday night, all those genes came out to play.

I was at my friend, The Swedish Chef's, house for her Glogg Evening. Don't know what glogg is? Basically it's wine with a whole bunch of sweet goodness thrown in and served warm with slivered almonds and raisins. Oh. My. Glogg. Yes, it was THAT good. And this is from a woman who absolutely detests red wine with every fibre of her being (even the German mulled red wine called 'gluhwein' that I've had in Germany) and only took the teensiest little cup just to be polite.

Well, that's how the evening started anyway. I would say 'by the end' I was knocking them back like a pro, but let's be honest.....it was only momentarily after that first teensiest little cup was gone that I was throwing them down with obscene amounts of pleasure. I thought I was in Heaven.

And then she brought out the white glogg with ginger.

%£$%@!£$£@$%$^%$%$£$@£%$^!!!!!!!

Really, there are no words for how divine it was. Glogg Evening was Friday, by Saturday morning I was sending the good-etiquette 'Thank You' email to The Swedish Chef and begging her to find me a Swedish recipe for the white glogg (having exhausted searches myself), by Saturday afternoon I was doing the dance of joy to see that I already had everything in the house for the recipe she sent me, by Saturday evening I was infusing the wine, and by Sunday lunchtime I was enjoying my first cup. Ahhhhhh, glogg.

So I'm now sharing with you. There are a million and one recipes to be found for the red version of Swedish Glogg, so I'll leave it up to you to find one for yourself. But here's the white one that made me verrrrrrrrrry happy this weekend:

* 1 bottle white wine of choice (I like Verdicchio or Voignier, chardonnay would be fine)
* 2 Tbsp brown sugar
* zest of one orange
* 10-12 whole cloves
* 1-2 cinnamon sticks
* 6-8 whole cardamom pods (I smashed these open with the wine bottle)
* 1.5-2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, sliced (you can leave the peel on)

If you have cheesecloth, make a little bag to hold everything in. I didn't, so just poured it through a fine sieve at the end to catch the spices.

Put about a cup (200-250ml) of wine in a saucepan, add the spices, bring it to a simmer, then turn heat off and let infuse overnight (leaving it alone overnight was BY FAR the most difficult part of the process!). The next day, add the rest of the wine and filter out the spices. Serve warm/hot in small teacups, adding raisins and/or slivered almonds if you wish.

Forget spiced apple cider in the crock pot for Christmas Day, this will now be our hot drink of choice. From here on out, I will either be hosting Christmas or sleeping over at the house of the person hosting Christmas, because now that I've discovered white glogg with ginger, I will NOT be driving anywhere on Christmas Night.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to the final two cups left in that bottle before my husband does. He's not Swedish, after all. He has no claim to it.

(PS - Until I'm clever enough to figure out how to change it, it seems the posts on this blog will always be listed as written by Mr Blue Eyez. I'm trusting all of you to be judicious enough to tell the difference between his writing and mine)