Perhaps it’s too early to be thinking about Christmas, but this Saturday I saw my first Christmas display at my local Mega-Mart. I love Christmas as much as the next guy, in fact, maybe a bit more. But when Frank Sinatra is singing “Let it Snow” before northwest Arkansas has endured its first freeze? This is getting ridiculous.
Yes, it’s too early to early to begin this celebration of the most wonderful time of the year, but this display has me thinking. Is it too early to mull up a batch of Glühwein? If Glühwein is the secret sauce to Christmas, my mother’s childhood friend Karen is the patron saint of the holiday. I remember her standing in my grandparents’ kitchen. Karen makes us close our eyes tightly while she wraps spices in a muslin bag. “Family secret,” she tells me and a few minutes later says I can open my eyes.
While sugar dissolves in water warming over the stove, Karen tells us, “it’s important to keep the water warm without bringing it to a boil.” She has two large bottles of burgundy table wine and she corks them. “If the water’s too hot, or if the wine boils, the alcohol evaporates,” she says. ”And what fun would that be?” Karen pours the wine into the water and I see it mix like a crimson cloud, swirling in the water. She drops cinnamon sticks in the mix, then the muslin bag and says, “now we wait.”
My mother is in the kitchen and she begs Karen for the recipe but Karen laughs, says she’ll take this recipe to her grave. “Not even for your best friend?” my mother asks.
Karen winks. “It’s proprietary, like the formula for Coca-Cola. Let’s go sing some carols, Susan, while the mixed-wine steeps.”
My grandparents passed on a few years ago, which means I’ve neither seen Karen nor tasted her spiced wine in some time. I walk by the spice aisle and consider dialing her number, asking her to give me just a hint or two. But some things are better left in Christmas past, I think. Some things are better left to simmer, and sweeten, and linger soft in the memory.
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October Poetry Prompt: Do you have a particular wine or beer memory that lingers? Have you put words to it before? Try penning a poem about that memory and leave it with us in the comments. We might share it with the world! (Or at least the Twitter universe.)
Now, let’s get our creativity brewing!
Tweetspeak’s October Beer and Wine Prompt:
This month’s theme at Tweetspeak is beer and wine poetry, and we’re using words and phrases from beer and wine related products, articles, or musings as poetry prompts. We’d love you to join with us. How do you participate?
1. Grab a cold one or a bottle of wine, a magazine article relating to beer or wine, or your favorite short story touching on the subject.
2. Arrange a found poem containing words from the products. Make sure your poems touch on themes of beer or wine.
3. Tweet your poems to us. Add a #TSCheers hashtag so we can find it and maybe share it with the world.
4. If you aren’t a twitter user, leave your found poem here in the comment box.
5. At the end of the month, we’ll choose a winning poem and ask the winner to record his or her poem to be featured in one of our upcoming Weekly Top 10 Poetic Picks.
Now, let’s brew some creativity and see what we can uncork! Who’s first?
Photo by mu0hace_dc, Creative Commons via Flickr. Post by Seth Haines.
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Okay, I want the recipe. Especially since I don’t have the soft memories
Pick up the phone, Seth 
It would be fun to get people’s favorite spiced wine recipes.
I totally agree with the spiced wine recipe thing… Robbie and Schell–SHARE!
Share what. . . I don’t have the secret recipe. . . Would love to have it too though. . . I would love to have that water to wine recipe as well. . .
Now… if you can figure that one out?
I liked your poem, btw. Very nice.
Thanks again Seth! I appreciate the opportunity to participate and your encouragement. . .
Wine from Water Flows
(John 2:1-12)
Empty vessels
Strewn about
Eager anticipation
Alongside emptiness
Without
And then the wine
Flowed
From the Water
Divine
Religion and ritual
Fade to celebration
The best saved for last
Abundance and grace
In stark contrast
© October 25, 2012, Robbie Pruitt
Great memories Brother! Let’s make some for Thanksgiving! It won’t be the same but we can think, drink, and talk about the holidays at Grandma and Grandpa Duckies and Karen’s warm crimson drink.
I went back to Paris: http://faithfictionfriends.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-red-rhone.html
Drinking with Dickens
in the damp and chill took mulling
the pairings, wines and spices to swill.
Scrooge for A Christmas Carol couldn’t
resist, his drink the Smoking Bishop
on which he’d insist, served in a bowl
fashionably shaped like a miter, his head
sooner and later made very much lighter.
His was warm brew of port and red wine,
roasted oranges on which in time to dine,
thick, bitter rinds caramelized with cloves,
then punched up with a trace of cinnamon,
allspice, and mace, great knobs of sugar
to sweeten to taste. Alas, dear Bob Cratchit,
a fancy vision thins, for him and his missus
it were jugs of hot gin. Mr. Bumble, his fame
a name in Oliver Twist, swore by some lore
called the Smoking Beadle. Imbibing wine
gingered, boiled with raisins but haste,
this mighty curative he’d quaff down to face
the miseries of workhouse poor. Given not
to charity’s chore, those higher in order
demanded more. Theirs had a base not less
than Champagne or a Rhine, the Smoking
Cardinal, they called it, thought it so fine.
And social climbers, professing class, made
this a winter custom to verily last: to drink
up Smoking Pope, a burgundy pour, glow
red like irons while stumbling door to door.
Posted the poem, Wine from Water Flows, on my blog as well. Here it is:
http://www.robbiepruitt.com/2012/10/wine-from-water-flows.html
Tonight, I made the Mulled Wine.
I was inspired.
Here is what I did and it was excellent!
Two tablespoons of cloves
Two tablespoons of All Spice
A teaspoon of ground nutmeg
Three small cinnamon sticks
Two Limes
Two Oranges
1.5 cups of water
Squeeze the fruit above, then chop the fruit, with the spices and the water above.
Boil all together for an hour or so and simmer.
Add the sugar after the boil is reduced and 1 liter of your favorite red wine. Heat to the desired temperature, DO NOT BOIL.
Strain into a pitcher and enjoy!
I thought it was amazing and so did the neighbors here in Haiti. They said it smelled like Christmas. . .
Ahh! . . . the grace and goodness of it all. . . abundance!
This was fun! Thanks everyone.
Oh my!
I have to try!
I can almost smell the lime
And the cloves.
I feel warmer already.