Celebrate the holiday season with big batches of hot mulled cider made with this traditional Wassail mulling spice kit. Warm and welcoming, the smell of spiced cider fills the air with wafts of apple, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

A great gift or addition to your holiday or Après Ski celebrations! Makes 3 gallons.

What Is Wassail?

Wassail (from the Middle English 'wæs hæl' - which means ‘Be you healthy’) refers both to the salute 'Waes Hail' and to the drink of wassail, a hot mulled cider which is drunk as part of wassailing.

Wassailing is an English ritual intended to ensure a good apple harvest the following year.  Historically, the drink is a mulled cider, mulled beer, or mead, made with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and topped with toast. When wassailing, a group sings: “Old Apple tree, old apple tree, we've come to wassail thee, To bear and to bow apples enow, Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full, Barn floors full and a little heap under the stairs.”

Brewing Instructions

For a Gallon Brew: Fill a pot with 1 gallon of fresh apple cider, or ale, or mead. Fill spice bag with ⅓ cup of wassail spices.  Add spices and ½ cup sugar (not needed with a good apple cider, so use only if desired), and simmer at low heat for 1-2 hours.  Serve hot or chilled. Pairs well with whiskey, bourbon, or rum.

Ingredients

Cinnamon sticks, cut ginger, ground nutmeg.

Hand Blended and Packaged by Oliver Pluff & Co. in Charleston, South Carolina