hiidenkonttibeta

Now that the jouluaatto (christmas eve) is only a few days away I thought that our friends abroad would like to take a little inside peek into Finnish joulu (yule, christmas) preparations and traditions.

To properly get into joulumieli (christmas spirit), we begin with the traditional Finnish christmas drink, the glögi. Glögi means “spiced vodka” in Finnish (my dictionary translates it as mulled wine, but I don’t understand what wine has got to do with it).

Traditionally it’s prepared for drinking by adding some more spices. First, we gather all the ingredients:

Here we have raisins, almond, a snaps mug, and of course the glögi itself. Notice the jolly christmas red bottle cap, which warns the buyers that this is glögi and not your normal vodka and may contain spices, i.e. sugar, up to 18g/l (government regulation).

The basic recipe is as follows:

Step #1: Add raisins and sliced almond to the snaps mug. Note that we show a plenty of them in here to make them more obvious in the photo, but as a beginner you should begin carefully and add more as you get accustomed to the taste:

Step #2: Pour the glögi into the snaps mug. Leave a bit headroom so that the valuable drink doesn’t spill when moving the mug. More attention must be paid to step #2 when preparing subsequent drinks.

Stir with a spoon, and the basic version is ready for drinking.

If you tried and liked the basic glögi, and are adventurous enough (people often are, after drinking some glögi), you might like to taste the advanced version.

The advanced recipe adds one step to the procedure, and it requires one more ingredient: ground cinnamon. So, after carefully preparing your glögi following steps #1 and #2 above, do the additional step described below.

Warning: do not try this at home without an experienced glögi master supervising your progress.

Advanced step #3: using a hot plate, heat the glögi up, but don’t let it boil! During the heating, add a pinch of cinnamon and stir well.

When it’s steaming, it’s done. Just don’t burn your mouth! The advanced version is somewhat an acquired taste; not all people can stand it’s extreme spicyness. But if you’re one of the few, making the rest of christmas preparations is a joy with a mugful of hot glögi!