A Night Like This

I know it's been a while. I actually had a beautiful macaron post typed up and it somehow got eaten up by the internetz. I was pretty bummed out and I'll try to rehash it sometime next month.

I've decided that I am going to trim down my monthly posts from 9 to 5. I can do more but I want to do at least 5. Today is the last day of January and it's my 5th post of the month...how convenient! It just seems less daunting plus, I don't want to start sounding tired.

It has been so darn cold these past few days. We had a wave of warm in the middle of the month (the temps were in the 40's) but for the past few days, it hasn't gone above freezing. I was looking back at some of my pictures from our last trip to Germany and came across the Gleuhwein shots. This stuff was all over Vienna as well. Every place we tried it was a little bit different.

It's a seasonal beverage in the German speaking countries and it's made with mulled wine. My friend Andrew used to live in Germany and he made it a point to tell us that we should definitely try some. The way it's pronounced, I thought he was saying blue wine and the mental image was not pleasant. What was in the wine to make it blue!? How could it possibly taste good!?

When I saw the tent, I felt silly. Gleuhwein! It's served up nice and warm in a commemorative cup. You pay a deposit fee of about 2-3 euros for the mug and the beverage itself is about 2. If you want to keep the cup, you've already paid for it so you're more than welcome to do so. We kept the pretty cup we shared in Vienna. It had a nice picture of the Rathaus which is a huge and gorgeous building. The picture below was the drink we shared in Germany.

As you can see by the pink froth, it isn't blue. :-) It's served up nice and hot but not scalding so you can drink it right away. I didn't expect to like it nearly as much as I did. Even if I did hear it correctly and didn't imagine it to be the wrong color, mulled wine just sounded strange to me! I managed not to write it off and I'm glad I gave it a try. While we were walking around and taking in the sights, this stuff did an excellent job of taking the edge off of the cold weather. It smells really strong but it's quite smooth! Not too sweet with just a hint of spice. Sehr gut!

With the weather being as miserable these past few days, my heart ached when I saw these pictures. I'd give anything right now to warm my hands and kick back with a nice mug of Gluewein! I should try to see if I can dig up a recipe. I did get a lovely German cookbook for Christmas.....