How to Make Mulled Wine

Cut two oranges into eight wedges each and quarter the two lemons. Leave the skin on all of it. The peel carries the oils that give mulled wine its scent, and the pith adds a faint bitterness that keeps the sugar in check.

Take the third orange, leave it whole, and press whole cloves into the skin all over it. That keeps every clove in one place. Loose cloves float around the pan and end up in somebody's glass, and a clove between the teeth is a strong thing to bite into.

Weigh 100g of sugar into a large pan and pour one UK pint of water over it, which is a little over two and a half cups. White or brown sugar both work. Start at 100g even if that sounds low, because you will taste and adjust at the end and you cannot take sugar back out.

Sugar and water go in ahead of the wine so the sugar dissolves in plain hot liquid instead of sitting as grit at the bottom of a full pan.

Slide the orange wedges and lemon quarters into the pan, then lower the clove-studded orange in on top. Everything goes in at once. There is no order to fuss over and no reason to peel or segment anything.

The lemon matters more than it looks. Two bottles of wine plus sugar plus orange leans sweet on its own, and the lemon is what stops the finished pan tasting like squash.

Grate a couple of teaspoons of fresh ginger straight over the fruit. Sliced ginger works if you are in a hurry, but grated spreads through the whole pan instead of flavoring the liquid around one slice.

Roll five cardamom pods hard under your fingers until they crack without spilling their seeds, and drop them in with one cinnamon stick. Grate a little fresh nutmeg over the top. Stop earlier than feels right with the nutmeg, because it is the one spice here that can take the whole pan over.

Empty two bottles of red wine straight over the fruit and spices. A cheap fruity red is the right call here. Something soft with berry flavor and low tannin turns into a better pan of mulled wine than an oaky bottle three times the price, and heat makes a tannic wine taste harder rather than richer.

Add a splash of orange liqueur at this point if you have some. It is optional, and a fruity cherry brandy does the same job.

Turn the heat on low and let the pan climb slowly to its first lazy bubbles. That takes about ten minutes. Then turn it down again and hold it just under a simmer for another twenty, stirring now and then to move the sugar around.

Never let it boil. Alcohol goes off well below the boiling point of water, so a churning pan strips the wine of the thing that made it wine and leaves the tannins stewed and dry. Thirty minutes total is plenty for the spices to open up.

Once the fruit has gone soft and the kitchen smells of spice, take a spoonful and taste it. You are checking sweetness, not spice. Two bottles of wine vary more than any recipe can account for, and this is the step where you make the pan yours.

If it needs sweetening, stir in a dollop of honey rather than more sugar. Honey dissolves into hot wine instantly and brings its own flavor with it. Taste, adjust, taste again. A second splash of orange liqueur here lifts the citrus if it has faded.

Take the pan off the heat and give it a few minutes. Straight off the burner it is hotter than anybody wants to drink. Warm is the target, the temperature of a cup of tea you can start on right away.

Ladle it into glasses, catching a slice of orange in each one. Fish out the cardamom pods as you go, or at least keep them in the pan. If guests keep arriving, top the pan up with more wine, water and fruit and put it back on a low flame.