Nothing warms chilly fingers and toes more than a hot cup of mulled wine with a mince pie. Synonymous with Christmas, mulled wine is very simple to make and you can get away with using a relatively cheap bottle without your guests noticing, as it is masked by the sweetness and spices.
Mulled wine has been around since medieval times, when the spices were probably originally used to mask the flavour of poor quality alcohol. The Nordic glögg and German Glühwein date back as far as the 15th century, but in the UK it was the famous Mrs Beeton who first recorded her recipe for mulled wine in 1869.