Glögg is the Christmas drink above all other
The practice of spicing wine, either for health reasons or to improve the taste, was already current among the Greeks and Romans. In medieval Sweden people drank spices wines like hippocras, claree and lutendrank (posset). The classic glögg spices are cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger and Seville orange.
The word glögg is a contraction of the Swedish for “mulled wine”, and that term first crops up in Sweden in 1609, when the fashion for drinking warm spiced wine had spread northwards from the continent of Europe. The glögg would be flambéed in a pot like this, causing the sugar loaf on the rack to melt into it.
Recipes for mulled wine first appear in Swedish cookery books at the beginning of the 19th century. Both red and white wine were used:
Mulled wine
This requires an open silver ewer or jug, failing which a soapstone jug, both of which vessels should be heated, the former with seething water poured into it, the latter in such wise that the water is boiled therein. Then take a stoup (1.3 litres) of good red or white wine, as preferred, sweeten to taste and add to it candied peel of Seville orange or lemon, or equal parts of each, half cut into strips, together with 8 or 10 peeled cardamom and a little crushed cinnamon; they who love stronger spices, such as cloves and nutmeg, may add them as they please. Now pour this wine into the heated vessel, ignite it and let it burn till the flame dies out, then drink it and place it on and surrounded by new embers. Now take a sheet of clean paper, hot. This wine can if needs be also be mulled in a pewter tankard, but one should as far as possible avoid using pewter vessels for the preparation of any acidulous potions or comestibles.
From Ur C. Weltzin “Handbok wid Bränwinsbränning och Destillering”, 1808
By about 1890 glögg had become a popular yuletide drink in Sweden, and it was at about this time that the first sets of glögg glasses, decorated with Santas and hearts, were put into production.
At the end of the 19th century, with glögg getting more and more popular, private wine merchants brought out ready-made blends, made to their own recipes and usually bearing colourful labels with Santas and snow scenes.
Founded in 1846, the firm of J.D. Grönstedt & Co was one of the best-known Stockholm wine merchants. Their wine glögg was made from several different wines mixed with basic syrup and spices. Their steaming pot label was used by Vin & Sprit AB on its fortified wine glögg until as recently as 1992.
Many new blends of glögg saw the light of day in the 1990s. Vin & Sprit AB launched its Blossa (”Torch”) series in 1993. Followign the abolition of the wholesale monopoly in 1995, new wine importers began producing glögg, and white glögg took on a new lease of life. Glögg parties are popular December occasions at workplaces and in people’s homes.
Glögg could also be made with schnapps (vodka). J.D. Leufvenmark’s recipe book, published in 1870, includes a recipe for “ordinary glögg”, containing no wine at all. Instead it was made with schnapps and spices, with a tiny dash of brandy.