Chocolate Milk with Coriander and Mintlade / Sjololademelk med Koriander og Mintlade

Two delicious hot milk drinks found on “Varme Melkedrikker –
Oppskrifter og Inspirasjon” (Varm milk drinks – Recipes and Inspirtion) a free e-booklet published by tine.no

When autumn starts to get cold, it is great to enjoy a warm and delicious milk drink. No matter if it is at home in front of the fireplace or on a chilly hike. Hot milk drinks warm both inside and out. Hot cocoa, chai tea, chocolate milk with coriander or mint. There are countless variations you can make and it’s just your imagination that sets the limits.

Apple Toddy / Epletoddy

A recipe for a lovely spicy toddy found on meny.no

Autumn is just around the corner here Norway now, so the evenings are not that hot anymore so this simple recipe for a tasty apple toddy can be a good idea. If you love apple and ginger, this hot drink is just the thing for you.

Bishop / Bisp

A traditional Norwegian hot drink found on meny.no

Bishop is traditional Norwegian hot, alcoholic, spicey drink that reminds of gløgg, just that it also contains orange. This is really something to warm a frozen body on those rainy autumn evenings that’s coming soon. Maybe along with some gingerbread with, for example, blue cheese and figs.

French Chocolate / Fransk Sjokolade

A classic hot beverage recipe found in “Baker’s Favourite Chocolate Recipes” published by Baker’s Chocolate in 1936

French Chocolate is a hot chocolate, de luxe. It is especially suitable for entertaining when the serving is done by the hostess, and makes an effective, gracious ceremony of afternoon refreshments

Accompaniments for this delicious beverage should be light and  dainty. Thin bread and butter sandwiches, unsweetened wafers, or sponge drops are excellent to serve.

Let this rich, satisfying French Chocolate do the honors at your next party – a bridge luncheon, afternoon, evening, or after-theatre party.

The History of the Cappuccino

An article by Lindsey Goodwin 
posted at The Spruce in March 2016

The cappuccino only began to become popular in America in the 1980s. This has led some people to believe that the cappuccino is a “new” drink. However, this drink actually dates back hundreds of years and has been enjoyed by generations in Italy and continental Europe.

Before the Cappuccino

In Europe, coffee drinking was originally based on the traditional Ottoman style of preparation. Water and coffee beans were brought to a boil, and sometimes sugar was added.

This is similar to modern-day Turkish coffee preparation.

By the late 1700s, the British and French had started filtering coffee beans from their coffee. Gradually, filtered and brewed coffee became more popular than boiled coffee. It was around this time that the term ‘cappuccino’ originated (though it was not used to describe the drink as we know it).

The Name ‘Cappuccino’

‘Cappuccinos’ first popped up as the ‘Kapuziner’ in Viennese coffee houses in the 1700s. A description of the ‘Kapuziner’ from 1805 described it as “coffee with cream and sugar”, and a description of the drink from 1850 adds “spices” to the recipe. Either way, these drinks had a brown color similar to the robes worn by the Capuchin (‘Kapuzin’) friars in Vienna, and this is where their name came from. (A similar drink of the time was known as the ‘Franziskaner’; it was made with more milk and named after the lighter-brown robes of the Franciscan monks.) The word ‘Capuchin’ literally means cowl or hood in Italian, and it was a name given to the Capuchin monks for their hooded robes.

The Invention of the Cappuccino

Although the name ‘Kapuziner’ was used in Vienna, the actual cappuccino was invented in Italy and the name was adapted to become ‘Cappuccino’. It was first made in the early 1900a, shortly after the popularization of the espresso machine in 1901. The first record of the cappuccino we have found was in the 1930s.

‘Cappuccini’ (as they are known in Italy) gradually became popular in cafes and restaurants across the country. At this time, espresso machines were complicated and bulky, so they were limited to specialized cafes and were operated solely by baristi. Italian coffee culture involved sitting around in these specialized cafes for hours, enjoying espresso, cappuccinos, caffe lattes and other drinks over conversation and reading. Photos from the era indicate that cappuccinos were served in the “Viennese” style, which is to say that they were topped with whipped cream and cinnamon or chocolate shavings.

The Modern-day Cappuccino Is Born

After World War II, the cappuccino making went through some improvements and simplifications in Italy. This was largely thanks to better and more widely available espresso machines, which introduced the so-called “Age of Crema“. These improvements and the post-WWII affluence across parts of Europe set the stage for cappuccino’s eventual worldwide popularity. This is when the modern cappuccino was born, so to speak, as it is when all the elements we now consider to make a great cappuccino (good espresso, a balance of steamed and frothed milk, presence of crema and a small, preheated porcelain cup) were all in play.

Cappuccinos Around the Globe

Cappuccinos first became popular across continental Europe and England. (In England, the first popularized form of espresso was, in fact, the cappuccino. It spread across the island easily because the Brits were already accustomed to drinking coffee with milk by that time, but the distinct texture and the cafe culture of the cappuccino set it apart from regular coffee with milk.) Later, the drink moved to Australia, South America and elsewhere in Europe. They then spread to America beginning in the 1980s, primarily due to its marketing in coffee shops (which had previously been more like diners with black coffee on offer). In the 1990s, the introduction of cafe culture (and higher priced drinks which correlated to the longer use of a seat in the coffee shop) made cappuccinos, lattes and similar drinks a big hit in the US.

More recently, the finally appeared elsewhere in the world, largely due to Starbucks. (See these international Starbucks menus for more examples of Starbucks’ spread of coffee drinks around the world.)

For the most part, contemporary cappuccinos are made with espresso, steamed milk and foamed milk. However, in some parts of the world, cappuccinos are still made more like Viennese Kapuziners, complete with whipped cream and other additives. This includes Vienna, much of Austria and Europe (such as Budapest, Prague, Bratislava and other parts of the former Austrian empire). This even includes even Trieste, Italy, a city which now borders on Slovenia and which has been held by various countries over the years. Since the 1950s, both cappuccinos and Kapuziners have been served in espresso bars since the 1950s.

Over the last three decades, automatic beverage machines in America and in some other countries have sold a drink that is called a ‘cappuccino’. These drinks are often made with brewed coffee or instant coffee powder and with powdered milk or milk substitute. They are not foamed and frothed but are whipped inside the machine to create bubbles. This unfortunate drink bears little relation to a true cappuccino.

In recent years, some European cappuccino customs have changed. Most notably, some Europeans (particularly those in the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France and Spain) have begun to drink cappuccino throughout the entire day rather than only in the morning. Now, cappuccinos are popular at cafes in the afternoon and at restaurants after dinner.

Warm Cranberries and Juniper Drink / Varm Tyttebær- og Einerdrikk

A classic Norwegian campfire hot drink found on dagbladet.no

This is a fresh, warm and healthy drink for cold evenings – and for camping and hikes in the woods.

A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S’Good for What Ails Ya

An article by Mary Miley Theobald at history.org

Some historians think that chocolate drinking spread from England to its North American colonies, but it seems more likely that it came directly in ships that plied the trade routes from the West Indies to the major colonial ports of Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Newport, Rhode Island. Whatever the route, chocolate arrived in English North America at about the same time it arrived in England. It was available as chocolate nuts, as shells, and in processed “chocolate cakes,” lumps of grated powder and sugar ready to be stirred into boiling water, mixed with whatever ingredients one preferred, and frothed with the little hand mill.

Those who bought the cacao seed had to roast and grind the chocolate themselves or, more likely, have their servants or slaves do the tedious job. Those who, like Martha Washington, purchased the cacao shells, steeped them in hot water to make a thin chocolaty drink that was easier on the stomach than oily chocolate.

According to Jim Gay, most chocolate was processed in the northern colonies, in New England, Philadelphia, and New York. It was sold in its various forms in general stores and grocers’ shops. In pre-Revolutionary Williamsburg, unsweetened chocolate went for about two shillings sixpence per pound, slightly more than a free unskilled laborer or sailor earned in a day. Obviously, few of those men drank chocolate. Prices fell, however, and by the nineteenth century, it had become cheap enough to be given to slaves.

Nobilities drinking chocolate in Mrs White’s Chocolate House in London.

Its perceived medicinal value made chocolate a natural product for apothecary shops. It was considered nourishing for the sick as well as an aid to digestion and was believed to promote longevity, help lung ailments, energize the body, cure hangovers, suppress coughs, and, as mentioned, stimulate the libido. For that reason, the Virginia Almanac of 1770 cautioned women against it, warning “the fair sex to be in a particular manner careful how they meddle with romances, chocolate, novels, and the like,” especially in the spring, as those were all “inflamers” and “very dangerous.”

“This was very much ignored,” Jim Gay says. “Women were the main consumers of chocolate. Children were denied chocolate because it was a stimulant.” But it was this sexy reputation that caused chocolate to become associated with love, Valentine’s Day, sinful pleasures, and decadence.

Ben Franklin recommended chocolate as a cure for smallpox in Poor Richard’s Almanac of 1761; Doctor Benjamin Rush did the same in his medical texts. Thomas Jefferson thought chocolate would overtake tea and coffee as the American beverage of choice. In a letter of November 27, 1785, to John Adams he wrote, “The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain.” In this he was mistaken. Chocolate drinking would soon decline in favor of chocolate eating.

By the late eighteenth century, a very few, very wealthy Americans were eating chocolate as food. Not the creamy sort of milk chocolate candy bars we know today—those would not exist until the nineteenth century—this rather gritty chocolate was shaved and cooked into puddings, pies, and tarts and served as a side dish at dinner. It was also mixed into creams and ice creams and almond-shaped candies and served at the finest tables as part of the dessert course.

North America’s first cookbook, printed in 1742 in Williamsburg by William Parks, publisher of the Virginia Gazette, contained but one chocolate recipe: “chocolate almonds.” The list of ingredients included no almonds; the word merely reflected the shape of the chocolate, which was mixed with sugar, orange flower water, and a binder. Today we might call it a chocolate drop.

Gay’s research turned up other Virginia chocolate recipes in manuscript form, sometimes written by an unknown housewife. One of these mixes sugar, chocolate, and almonds, then directs the cook to use cochineal to color them red, saffron for yellow, “Stone blew” for blue, and “the Juice of Spinage” for green. Gay calls this “the eighteenth-century ancestor of M&Ms.”

Chocolate did not really become a food until the middle of the nineteenth century. The pivotal date was 1828, when a Dutchman, Casparus Van Houten, invented a machine for manufacturing powdered low-fat cocoa. Chocolate beverages became easier and cheaper to make, leading to what some have called the democratization of chocolate.

In 1847, an English chocolate maker that had been in business almost a hundred years, J. S. Fry and Sons, developed the first molded chocolate bar. A Swiss, Henri Nestlé, figured out in 1867 how to make powdered milk by evaporation, and another Swiss, Daniel Peter, came up with the idea of blending Nestlé’s powdered milk with chocolate in 1879. The milk chocolate candy bar was on its way.

The Real Story About Irish Coffee And How It Was Invented

Before lattes and cappuccinos, before frappuccinos and espressos there was flavored coffee, ie Irish coffee, still one of the world’s most popular drinks. Yet not that much is known about why and how it became so popular.

Margaret O’Shaughnessy, the Founding Director at Foynes Flying Boat museum in County Limerick, has written to IrishCentral to say the flying boat terminal at Foynes, 35 miles from Shannon, and not Shannon Airport was the location for the first Irish Coffee after we mistakenly said Shannon was where it was invented in a recent article.

The inventor, bartender Joe Sheridan, later moved to San Francisco and worked at the Buena Vista Cafe where journalist Stanton Delaplane of the San Francisco Chronicle had brought back the secret formula from Ireland and started one of the world’s most famous drinks.

Despite it being an incredible success, Delaplane later admitted he couldn’t stand the stuff yet found his name forever linked to it.

Sheridan was a top class chef and bartender whose family had moved from the North to Dublin. When he applied for the chef’s job at Rineanna, the townland in Limerick where the Flying Boat terminal was based, his application came in to CEO Brendan O’Regan for the position of chef and it simply stated, “Dear Sir. I’m the man for the job. Yours sincerely, Joe Sheridan.

It turned out he wasn’t lying. Foynes was the first Irish transatlantic Airport when Pan Am did their first passenger commercial flights from New York to Foynes in 1939 and Joe Sheridan soon became famous.

The Pan Am flying boats were based at Foynes while Shannon Airport was actually 35 miles away. Charles Lindbergh helped choose the two airports for Pan Am but no direct flights from Shannon to the US occurred until 1945, long after Irish coffee was invented

Until then passengers to the US from Europe flew into Shannon and were bussed to Foynes.

In 1943 a flying boat flight to New York turned back due to bad weather and Joe Sheridan, originally from Castlederg in Co. Tyrone – a chef and highly skilled bartender – was asked to come back to Foynes to prepare hot food and drinks for the freezing passengers.

He put some good Irish whiskey into their coffees and was asked by the passengers if he had used Brazilian coffee to which he replied ”No it was Irish coffee.” He then continued to put the coffee in a glass and topped it with pouring cream – thus the Irish coffee we know today was invented in Foynes, not Shannon Airport that night.

Furthermore, in 1952 Joe Sheridan was offered a job in san Francisco at the Buena Vista and he met Stanton Delaplane the journalist who had made his drink world famous.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that after sampling Irish Coffee at Foynes in 1951 Delaplane flew home and he spent a long evening at the Buena Vista Cafe near the foot of Hyde Street working out the proper balance of ingredients. Overnight Jack Koeppler, the late owner of what had been a quiet neighborhood bar, found himself the proprietor of the most prosperous saloon in the city.

Five years later, Delaplane was quoted in Time magazine as saying; “I can’t stand the stuff anymore.”

Joe Sheridan was even enticed over to the Buena Vista in 1952 and worked there for ten years. He is buried in Oakland, CA. Delaplane, who was the winner of a Pulitzer Prize, died in 1988.

Today the Buena Vista serves up to 2,000 Irish coffees a day. The busiest day they’ve ever had was the Super Bowl in 1982, 49ers vs. Miami. Three bartenders served 109 bottles of whiskey between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. The night crew served another 104. There are 29 drinks per bottle. So that means the pub served well over 6,000 drinks that day [6,177 specifically].

All because of a cold night and bad weather, all because of a storm in 1943 that forced a flight to America back to its origin at Foynes Irish coffee became the first flavored coffee drink. One wonders what Joe and Stan would make of all the flavored beans in Starbuck’s these days!

Article by James O’Shea found at irishcentral.com

The Story of Typhoo Tea

Typhoo’s Beginings

Typhoo’s origins are located in Birmingham . By the turn of the 20th century, Birmingham had over sixty tea merchants selling mostly large leaf tea.

The founder of Typhoo, John Sumner, was born 26 February 1856 in Birmingham. His grandfather (William) and father (John) had established a grocery business in the Bull Ring in Birmingham.

In the early 1900s John Sumner senior, now in his seventies, left the running of the shop to his son. John junior was happy with the successful business but had long sought a speciality product to develop. The answer came from his sister Mary Augusta. She suffered from indigestion and had tried a special tea made from tiny particles, not the large leaf variety that was common. The tea brought her great relief from her indigestion and she approached John to suggest he sold the tea in his shop.

John decided to go ahead. He bought 30 chests of tea and spent £200 on advertising, even though his friends suggested he might be wasting his money. John decided that, instead of selling the tea loose over the counter, he would packet the tea under a brand name. The criteria he placed on choosing a name for his tea were:

The name must be distinctive and unlike others
It must be one which would trip off the tongue
It must be one which could be protected by registration

He finally settled on Typhoo Tipps. Typhoo meaning, in part, the Chinese word for doctor. The double p in Tipps was originally a printing error but remained misspelt on the packets of tea for many years.

Typhoo was the first brand of tea to be sold pre-packaged rather than loose over the counter. In order to encourage his customers to purchase the tea John gave away a jar of cream to each person that bought a pound packet. The tea quickly became popular and John’s customers were becoming loyal to the brand that. Word of mouth recommendation from John’s customers led beyond his regular clientele and soon other grocers were asking to purchase the Typhoo tea, inspiring John to set up his wholesale agency trade.

Sumner’s Typhoo Tea Ltd

1905 saw John close his grocery business in order to pay off debts to the bank. However, he took the opportunity to invest in Typhoo and create a private company. On 29 July 1905, and financed by John’s friends, Typhoo Tea Ltd was incorporated.

In the first year, Typhoo managed to show a small profit and silence the critics that said John would never make a business from small-leafed tea. John had, however, drawn attention to tea made from the edge of the leaf. This pure-edge leaf tea produced 80 more cups to the pound than ordinary tea and also cut out the stalk that contained tannin and caused indigestion. John even managed to get his tea recommended by doctors and was able to sell it through chemists’ shops.

As early as 1906 John Sumner was having special Typhoo branded teapots made to sell to his customers. He also inserted circulars into the tea packets to highlight its benefits, and included picture cards on a range of subjects, which became very collectable.

Typhoo Tea Ltd made steady progress. In 1909 John had managed to pay off all his debts. He celebrated by travelling to Ceylon to appoint a buying/blending agency to buy the tea directly from the tea auctions, therefore reducing costs. John also moved all his blending requirements to Ceylon, again reducing costs and resulting in a reduction of the cost of Typhoo to the public. The company continued to grow in both size and in the loyalty of its customers.

First World War

In March 1917 Typhoo faced a tough challenge from the British government. The start of the First World War had caused the government to announce it was going to ration tea by buying up all the available tea and then distributing limited amounts to retailers at a uniform price.

Because Typhoo was trading in leaf-edge rather than ordinary tea, they could not make their product from the tea the government intended to supply. Requests for the supply of leaf-edge tea were turned down, and even an appeal signed by 4000 men in the medical profession could not change the government’s mind.

John decided to go to the public, inserting a circular into the Typhoo packets that asked every customer to write to the Tea Controller stating the medical reason why they required Typhoo’s product. The Tea Controller, deluged with letters, eventually gave in and granted Typhoo a permit to trade in leaf-edge tea.

Between the Wars

After the war Typhoo continued to expand, moving its packaging business into larger premises with the latest packaging machinery. Blending was still carried out by the Ceylon agents in Colombo.

In 1932 John Sumner was knighted in recognition of his charitable services that included the founding of the John Sumner Trust, devoted to work with education, literature, art and research. The award also recognised John’s setting up of the Colehaven Endowed Homes for Gentlewomen and his work with hospitals. John celebrated his knighthood with a staff party and a bonus for all his employees.

In the early 1930s problems arose with the quality of the tea being supplied from Ceylon. It was discovered that the agents in Ceylon were not adhering to the quality control requirements put in place by Typhoo. They were, in fact, purchasing inferior teas at low prices and then overcharging for the blend in order to make a profit.

The matter was followed up by John Sumner’s son, J R Hugh Sumner, and the situation was finally resolved in January 1933 when the contract with the Ceylon agency was terminated. The newly appointed agents, Carson & Co. Ltd took over the responsibility for buying and blending and continued for many years until market trends led to less Ceylon tea being required for the blends. Around this time Typhoo was increasing in capacity and was able to house blending equipment in its works in the Birmingham Canal Basin. After the blending machinery had been completely installed in 1934, Typhoo began to employ its own tea taster/blenders.

Now in advancing years, John Sumner senior visited the works less and less and died on 11 May 1934. After the death of his father, J R Hugh Sumner was elected chairman of Typhoo.

Second World War

With the onset of the Second World War, once again a government Tea Controller took ownership of all the stocks of tea. Rationing of tea began in 1940 and continued for a further 12 years.

Wartime bombing devastated the Typhoo factories. Unable to pack their own tea, Typhoo made arrangements to have an emergency blend packed at the factories of Messrs Brooke Bond Ltd and Lyons Ltd. The employees at Typhoo made great efforts to make enough repairs to the factory to allow the Typhoo brand to continue and, by June 1941, a limited amount of genuine Typhoo tea was available. A steady turnover of stock was maintained until the end of the war when the damage to the works could be fully repaired. Wartime also saw a change to the name of the company. ‘Sumners’ was dropped from the front of the name, leaving Typhoo Tea Ltd.

Moving On

After tea rationing had finished, Typhoo once again concentrated on promoting their brand. Throughout the 1950s they used various promotional campaigns, including the reintroduction of the picture cards that had been popular before the war.

The tea buyers started to buy more tea from India and introduced a shipping department to deal with the administration. New packing machines were installed at the factory to cope with the increased output and by 1960 Typhoo had become the brand leader.

By the mid 1960s, Typhoo was annually packing more than 80 million pounds of tea and exporting to 40 countries worldwide. J R Hugh Sumner, aged 80, finally retired and handed over the chairmanship to managing director H C Kelley.

Typhoo’s success had, over the years, attracted attention from potential investors. However, it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the management was tempted into a merger. They entered into talks with Schweppes, the famous soft drinks firm, and on 24 January 1968 it was announced that Typhoo was to join Schweppes’ old Food Division to form a new company called Typhoo Schweppes. A year later, Cadbury’s also joined the conglomeration, creating Cadbury Schweppes Typhoo.

In 1986 Typhoo was sold in a management buyout and the new company was called Premier Brands. The company immediately set about increasing its tea business with the purchase of the famous Scottish tea company, Melrose’s, in November 1986. This was the first of four acquisitions made by Premier in 1986-7. The second purchase was the Glengettie Tea Company followed by Ridgways and Jersey Trading Corporation SrL.

Significant profit improvement was a key feature of the following years. Premier continued to expand its tea operation by acquiring the herbal tea market leader, London Herb & Spice. Internal growth also saw the development of products, including Typhoo One Cup and Typhoo Q Tea instant.

In 1989 Premier Brands was bought by Hillsdown Holdings and then in 1999 by American venture capitalists Hicks Muse Tate and Furst. Further product developments were seen in 1999 when Typhoo became the first tea brand to introduce a green tea blend to the UK market and, in 2004, with the launch of Typhoo Fruit and Herb.

On 31 October 2005 Apeejay Surrendra Group, one of India’s largest tea producers, acquired Typhoo and its associated brands.

Text from typhootea.com

Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Glögg

With background info, recipes, and where to find Scandinavia’s beloved holiday drink in the Bay Area.

Article by By Luke Tsai posted in East Bay Express, November 26 2014

Many Christmases ago, a coworker with a vague Norwegian affiliation first poured me a steaming hot, boozy, sweet, crimson-red concoction so loaded with the fragrance of cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom, it was as though he’d emptied the contents of his winter spice cabinet into the mug.

It was glögg, the traditional mulled wine beverage that’s wildly popular throughout Scandinavia. But here in the Bay Area, glögg — pronounced, roughly, like “glug” — is still largely unknown.

Slowly, though, that’s starting to change, thanks in part to the efforts of a homesick Swede, a beloved Scandinavian specialty shop, and a restaurant looking to expand beyond its typically all-American cocktail selection.

Martin Geijer started his San Francisco-based company, Geijer Glögg, which produces a glögg liqueur, in large part because he was homesick for the stuff. Geijer explained that in his native Sweden, the drink is rooted in the winter season, when everyone is chilled to the bone. “It really is bloody cold,” he said. Alcohol makes you feel warmer — and all the better if it’s served hot and infused with comforting winter spices.

Here in the East Bay, throwing a glögg party can be as simple as picking up a bottle of pre-mixed glögg concentrate, and it should come as no surprise that Berkeley’s Nordic House (2709 San Pablo Ave.) — the Bay Area’s repository for all things Scandinavian — is the place to go. For $7.95, you can snag a bottle of Saturnus, a popular Swedish brand. To make a batch of glögg, pour the concentrate into a pot along with the cheapest bottle of dry red wine you have on hand. (Nordic House owner Pia Klausen favors a Gallo burgundy.) While this heats up, add raisins, almond slivers, and fresh orange peel. Serve the glögg hot, providing spoons for your guests so they can scoop up the raisins, which will plump as they cook, absorbing all of the sweet, boozy goodness.

As an alternative to the bottled concentrate, Nordic House also carries a house-made glögg spice mix ($3.95) that consists of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, orange peel, and raisins. You add that to two bottles’ worth of wine and let the mixture sit overnight. When you’re ready to heat it up, add sugar and, if you like, some blanched almonds at the very end. This method takes a bit more advance planning, but according to Klausen, it’s worth it — the spices won’t be as intense with the pre-bottled version.

If you’ve had glögg before, it was probably very similar to the kind that Klausen describes. But Martin Geijer’s family recipe, passed down to him by his father, involved infusing the traditional spices into a highly concentrated neutral spirit rather than the more typical red wine base. Starting last year, Geijer has enlisted Alameda’s St. George Spirits to distill a version of his family recipe. The result, Geiger Glögg, retails for $32 a bottle and is, according to Geijer, the world’s first glögg liqueur. (Apparently, in Sweden the tax code makes producing a non-wine-based product unfeasible from an economic standpoint.)

According to Geijer, the benefits of drinking glögg in this liqueur form are twofold: The spices are more prominent when there’s no wine flavor to cover them up, and, at 20 percent ABV, the liqueur packs a bigger punch than a traditional mulled wine.

You can heat it up in a pot or kettle, the same way you would a bottle of sake. But Geijer said the liqueur can be treated like any other spirit — served cold or at room temperature, either neat or mixed into a cocktail such as a Stockholm Sour: one part liqueur, one part bourbon, a half part fresh lemon juice, and a quarter part simple syrup, all mixed together in a cocktail shaker.

For more ambitious glögg-inspired cocktails, you might look to the handful of Bay Area restaurants that carry Geijer Glögg, including Hutch (2022 Telegraph Ave.), a Southern restaurant in Uptown Oakland whose bar program otherwise focuses almost exclusively on American whiskey. But owner David King explained that he was introduced to the pleasures of glögg when he was working as a chef in Copenhagen.

“Once it’s cold as it is in Denmark in December and January, it’s one of the best things you can put in your body,” King said.

King and his bar manager, Joshua Sexton, are hoping customers will warm up to a holiday cocktail that they recently added to the menu — a milk punch, served hot, that King said will be somewhat akin to a Brandy Alexander, which is traditionally made by mixing brandy, milk, crème de cacao, and spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg. In Hutch’s version, the glögg liqueur adds an extra boost of spice, resulting in something akin to a Christmas-y hot toddy — perfect for the holidays.

You probably want to know how the stuff tastes. I sampled a bottle of Geijer Glögg, and the first thing I noticed was the smell of cinnamon, which was potent enough that it wafted up through the unopened cap. The liqueur had a lovely golden-amber hue and, when I drank it, a honeyed sweetness followed by a spicy kick. The overall effect was not unlike a boozy distillation of Big Red chewing gum.

When you heat the glögg up — in the office microwave, in my case — the intensity doubles or triples. By the second sip, there was a pronounced warmth in my belly. On a frigid (by Bay Area standards) winter evening, I could see myself going back for a second cup, and then a third.

The Christmas Recipes – Part 30

Peppermint Candies / Peppermyntekonfekt

Quick Troll Cream / Rask Trollkrem

Hot Spicy Apple Drink / Varm Krydret Epledrikk

The Christmas Recipes – Part 18

 

Pfeffernüsse – German Pepper Nuts /
Tyske Peppernøtter

Mulled White Wine & Spiced Tea /
Hvit Gløgg & Krydret Te

The Christmas Recipes – Part 16

Café Brûlot – Burning Coffee / Brændende Kaffe

Coffee Punch / Kaffepunch

The Christmas Recipes – Part 7

Danish Cardinal Punch / Dansk Kardinalpunch

Grapefruit In Brandy / Grapefrukt I Konjakk

Cured Beef / Gravet Oksekjøtt

The Christmas Recipes – Part 1

Angel Desert / Engledessert

Hot Mulled Cider / Varm Kryddad Cider