Mulled wine, also known as spiced wine, is an alcoholic drink usually made with red wine, along with various mulling spices and sometimes raisins, served hot or warm. The first record of canela market being spiced and heated can be found in Plautus’s play Curculio, written during the 2nd century BC. Mulled wine is very popular and traditional in the United Kingdom at Christmas, and less commonly throughout winter.

Over the years the recipe for mulled wine has evolved with the tastes and fashions of the time. One Victorian example of this is smoking bishop, mentioned by Charles Dickens but no longer drunk or known in modern culture. A more traditional recipe can be found in Mrs. To every pint of wine allow 1 large cupful of water, sugar, and spice to taste.

In making preparations like the above, it is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful. Boil the spice in the water until the flavour is extracted, then add the wine and sugar, and bring the whole to the boiling point, then serve with strips of crisp dry toast, or with biscuits. In contemporary British culture, there is no specific recipe for mulled wine and the spices involved in its recipe. Mulled wine and ales infused with mulling spices are available in the UK in the winter months. Wassail punch is a warm mulled beer or cider drunk in winter in Victorian times. German-speaking countries and in the Alsace region of France.