Wine Cocktails & Recipes Archives - Page 10 of 13

Meet your new go-to summer beverage. The wine slushy! At Snow Farm Vineyard & Distillery, our slushy machine is super popular in the summer, but you can easily make wine slushies at home too.

You only need two to three ingredients: red or white wine, strawberry daiquiri or piña colada mix, and fresh or frozen fruit (fruit is optional). Below are two different ways to make slushies. You can make them either in the freezer or in the blender.

Enjoy a wine slushy, and you’ll instantly feel like you’re at our vineyard in the Champlain Islands on a warm summer day!

Wine Slushies: The Freezer Method

If you don’t have a blender, or if you want to prep your wine slushy in advance to enjoy later, you can combine the ingredients in a pitcher and put it in the freezer. Done!

It will take about 4-5 hours to freeze and become slushy-like. At that point, you can take it out, stir it up, and enjoy it. Or, you can leave it in the freezer until you’re ready to thaw it enough to drink. This can be days or even a week later.

I left mine in the freezer for a week before drinking it, and it was perfect. It’s a good way to use up an open bottle of wine that you aren’t sure you’re going to finish immediately.

When you’re ready to enjoy your slushy, take it out of the freezer and let it thaw for 20-30 minutes, and you’re good to go!

Wine Slushies: The Blender Method

For a faster wine slushy, you can use a blender to combine the ingredients with ice, and you won’t have to wait for the slushy to freeze.

The ice will dilute the wine a little bit, so if you’re looking for a less alcoholic drink, you can use this method over the freezer method. Your wine slushy will also be fruitier using a blender because you can add in frozen fruit.

Will Freezing Wine Change the Flavor or Alcohol Content?

The alcohol content won’t change when you freeze wine and in most cases, the flavor won’t change either.

The only thing to watch out for when freezing wine is how much it expands. If you don’t freeze it in a large enough container – it will expand and could break your container. When you’re making a wine slushy you want to use a large pitcher or a mason jar with at least an inch to expand.

Now, what are you waiting for? Let’s get you a wine slushy!

Strawberry Wine Slushy

Ingredients:
1 bottle red wine with berry notes like Leon Millot
1/4 cup strawberry daiquiri mix

Directions to make in the freezer:
Mix the wine and the daiquiri mix together and freeze for 4-5 hours. It will be the consistency of a slushy when you stir it up. If freezing for longer, you’ll need to let it thaw for 20-30 minutes before you can drink it. Stir and enjoy!

Directions to make in a blender with frozen fruit and ice:
If you’d like a fruity and faster version, mix the wine, daiquiri mix, 3-4 cups of fresh or frozen strawberries, and 2 cups of ice in a blender. Note: if you don’t have a large blender, you may need to blend the ingredients in batches because it may not all fit.

Piña Colada Wine Slushy

Ingredients:
1 bottle of fruity white wine like Naked Mermaid
1/4 cup piña colada mix

Directions to make in a blender with frozen fruit and ice:
If you’d like a fruity and faster version, mix the wine, daiquiri mix, 4-5 cups of fresh or frozen pineapple, and 2 cups of ice in a blender. Note: if you don’t have a large blender, you may need to blend the ingredients in batches because it may not all fit.

Enjoy and we hope to see you soon in the Islands!

Winter is a time to look inward, find comfort, and slow down. If you’ve had glogg, also sometimes called mulled wine, you know how it does the trick on a winter’s day with just the right combination of red wine, sweetness, and spice. An afternoon is well spent by a warm fire with a good book and a steamy mug of glogg.

Often the terms mulled wine and glogg are used interchangeably, but you should know they aren’t exactly the same.

Glogg vs. Mulled Wine - What’s the Difference?

Mulled wine is made by simply heating up wine and mixing in sugar and spices. There is no right way to make mulled wine and you’ll find lots of variations of recipes from all over the world. Mulled wine has been made for centuries – the Greeks and Romans mulled wine with spices because they believed it had health benefits. Let’s hope they’re right about that!

Glogg is a type of mulled wine that originated with the Swedish. The story of glogg began with a Swedish king who loved German wine mixed with sugar and spices. The drink was named “glödgag vin” meaning “glowing-hot wine.” It was shortened to glogg over time.

The Swedish recipes for glogg are a lot boozier than most mulled wine recipes because they include hard liquor. The Swedish add their favorite, aquavit – which is very similar to vodka. They also add raisins and nuts. You’ll need a spoon with your glogg so you can eat the liquor-soaked fruit and nuts when you’re finished.

You should also know glogg is not pronounced as it reads in English. Most people say glogg as if it rhymes with eggnog, but it’s actually pronounced closer to the word chug (but don’t chug your glogg!). Phonetically it’s more like glugg and sometimes glooog, pronounced like glue.

No matter what you call it, after being outside shoveling, skiing, or hiking, your body will thank you for a warm mug of glogg.

Two Glogg Recipes from Snow Farm Vineyard

Here at Snow Farm Vineyard we serve glogg on Friday nights in our tasting room from November to March (before the pandemic). We call it our weekly “Wine Downs” and we started it to help people relax and wind down from the week with wine!

Winemaker Julie Lane makes our mulled wine. She uses Snow Farm Vineyard’s Leon Millot as the base because mulled wine is best made with a dryer red wine.

Julie says if you want to keep it simple there are only three things you really need when making mulled wine (besides the wine) and that’s the sweetener, the spice, and the citrus.

The sweetener: you can use honey, sugar, maple syrup or anything you have on hand. At Snow Farm Vineyard we care for over 500 maple trees that we tap to make maple syrup, and so we use our all-natural maple syrup. It gives the wine a richer flavor than regular sugar.

The spice: at Snow Farm we keep it simple and just add cinnamon sticks. But you can also add nutmeg for an apple pie flavor, cloves, and/or star anise. It’s an experiment to see what combination you’ll like best.

The citrus: our favorite is to add sliced oranges. You should choose something that compliments the spice you’re adding. You can add apple instead of the orange. Or, you can choose lemon or lime to bring out the bite of the wine.

You can also forgo all of this and buy mulled wine pre-made or buy spice packets to drop into your wine, but doing it yourself is just as easy and more meaningful.

“Making it yourself is more authentic and unique because you’re going to use what you have in your cupboard,” Julie said.

Julie has made her mulled wine recipe dozens and dozens of times at the tasting room to the enjoyment of lots of happy guests. It takes only 5 minutes to prep, smells amazing while it’s simmering, and is a much-appreciated winter warmer.

Here are two recipes from Snow Farm Vineyard – one for a mulled wine and one for a glogg.

You can toss the ingredients in a crockpot and leave it on low for up to 3 hours, or for quicker enjoyment, you only need to simmer it on low for at least 15 minutes. It can also be made in advance, cooled, and reheated when you’d like to serve it.

5-Minute Mulled Wine Recipe

This is the recipe used by Snow Farm Vineyard at our tasting room and only takes 5 minutes to prep! You can let it mull for as long as you’d like.

1 bottle of Leon Millot by Snow Farm Vineyard
2–4 tablespoons maple syrup to taste (dark maple syrup has the best flavor)
2 cinnamon sticks
Half an orange, peeled and sliced into rounds

Combine all ingredients in a pot and heat on low until it just barely reaches a simmer. You can also use a crockpot to double or even quadruple the recipe. Cover and let it simmer for at least 15 minutes or up to 3 hours. Strain it through a fine-mesh strainer, and serve in mugs.

Traditional Glogg Recipe (with Brandy)

This glogg recipe includes liqueur, raisins, and nuts. It will take about 10 minutes to prep.

Ingredients:

Raisin Almond Mixture
½ cup raisins
½ cup slivered almonds
2 tbsp. maple syrup}
1 tbsp. butter

The Glogg
1 bottle of Leon Millot by Snow Farm Vineyard
1/4 cup brandy (or your favorite liqueur)
1 orange, peeled and sliced into rounds
8 whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
2 star anise
2–4 tablespoons maple syrup to taste

Directions:

Make the raisin almond mixture by combining all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook for 5 minutes on medium heat. Set aside.

Combine all of the glogg ingredients in a pot and cook on low, cover, and let the wine simmer on low for at least 15 minutes or up to 3 hours in a crockpot.

Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer, discard the orange slices, cloves, cinnamon sticks, and star anise.

Serve the glogg warm in heatproof mugs, add a spoonful of the raisin almond mixture to each mug.

Category: Wine Cocktails & Recipes

Wine Slushies Made Two Ways For Summer Refreshment