Review: Urban Accents Wine & Cider Mulling Spices
Review: Urban Accents Wine & Cider Mulling Spices
Buying a bunch of individual spices to make mulled wine might cost you a small fortune — and prepackaged mixes of powdered mystery spice are hardly an appropriately upscale alternative.
Urban Accents, which sells various sauces and spices, offers a solution in this sizeable jar of whole mulling spices, which include cinnamon, orange, lemon, star anise, vanilla and other spices, all fully formed. (For real, I cracked open the jar and saw a whole, unbroken star anise right on top.)
To use, just fill a tea ball infuser with a scoop of spices and dunk it into a mug of warm cider or wine; let steep for a few minutes. Simply use more for larger portions.
Results: Huge anise notes on the nose, but I think the body could benefit from a bigger dose of spice than a single tea ball can supply. The flavor is just too thin, with only hints of vanilla and cinnamon — and not enough of either. Double up on the recipe — or just dump the spices directly into your wine/cider and drink carefully — to give it a much-needed boost.
B- / $10 per 4.5 oz jar / urbanaccents.com [BUY IT NOW FROM AMAZON]
Urban Accents Wine & Cider Mulling Spices
$10
We used this particular product over the holidays in spiced cider spiked with aged rum and apple brandy and absolutely loved it.
I agree that is was a little weak at first. We used a crock pot (kind of a like an electric punch bowl) and let it steep for about an hour before our guests arrived and the extra time really helped bring out the flavor of the mulled spices.
Using a spiced rum instead of an aged rum isn’t a bad idea. Chairman’s Reserve Spiced rum has heavy notes of clove that go very well in spiced cider.
The crock pot idea is good — i don’t think you can get that much flavor out of whole herbs and spices in just a few minutes of steeping.
Used about 3 tbsp in a metal tea infuser along with a jug of Martinelli’s organic honey crisp apple cider. Put in a small 4 quart crockpot on low for a few hours and it turns out amazing. The longer it steeps, the deeper the flavors. Super easy to start before prepping and cooking. The quality of the spices seems quite good and no strange artificial powders or additives. By the time guests arrive the house smells like spiced apple pie has been cooking all day. Once we started drinking it, I switched it to keep warm and it was hot and ready as desired, although it didn’t last too long. Everyone loved it! Going to be my new go to holiday hosting tradition.