Do you hear what I hear? Depends. Are you hearing coughing, hacking, sneezing, wheezing and something that could best be described as “snortiling” among your fellow citizenry? Does it sound like everyone around you is auditioning for “Plague, The Musical?” Seems like the sounds of this season are the bagpipe-tooting demons of the community’s upper respiratory tract all warming up for a chest congestion jam session.
The cold and whatever other assorted crud your doctor is telling you “is going around” is indeed, going around. And on its next cycle or the one after that, if it hasn’t rolled over you like a Hummer four-wheeling it over Grandma’s Precious Moments collection, it probably will. Okay, so what to do? There are dozens of remedies of course, ranging from the chicken soup folksy to high-tech nostrums clinically alleged to reduce the symptoms. I, of course, tend to think more in terms of the myriad pharmacological responses to a cold that involve alcohol—and lots of it. Cold coming on? Cold already come on? Contemplating the coming of a cold? Time to break out the glögg.
Glögg is basically a mulled wine. It comes from Sweden. Or maybe Norway. Or Finland. One of those countries where winter last about eleven and a half months, where people, until the invention of MTV, spent endless nights in rock and straw houses, huddling around a reindeer manure-fuelled fire, comparing their chilblains, inventing the umlaut and that little “o” with the slash through it—and drinking glögg.
What distinguishes glögg is the virtual cornucopia of spices that go into it. Cinnamon, cloves, blanched almonds, cardamom (the pods, not the seeds), golden raisins: recipes for homemade a glögg are, like your cousin’s kid’s sexual orientation, complicated. You can get all the ingredients you need around here. But when you’re coming down with a cold, feeling like someone’s opened the tap on a cement mixer into your sinuses, do you really want to embark on a recipe safari of Emeril Lagasse-ian proportions? Do what we do: buy a pre-made glögg mix. We know this will infuriate all those glögg snobs out there. Calm down, Sven. A few bucks for a bottle of instant glögg sauce and you’re in business and if you like it as much as we do as a cold reliever or just a great evening drink, you can always try making your own from scratch later. The instructions are on the bottle. One part glögg mix with one part wine. Go with a modest Merlot or cabernet. Or embrace your inner Valkerie and use vodka. Heat the mixture in a pan until it’s got a nice simmer. Ladle out a cupful. The aroma is both powerful and delicate. It’s lemony, minty, and grapey. The flavor is complex; sweet but loaded with layers of fragrant spice. It will open your sinuses and goes down smooth, coating your sore throat and easing your aches. A hot mug of glögg is the perfect midwinter drink, whether you’re nursing a cold or just needing some comfort and liquid reassurance that no matter how dark, how cold, how icy and snowy, spring is out there and will eventually be here—along with a return of your allergies.
(Glögg mix, made by the Saturnus company in Sweden, is a hot commodity among local glögg mavens, who jealously guard their sources. Check for it some of the bigger liquor stores or at World Market, which every year sells out its stock quickly. If local sources are dry, you can order it online.) --Clayton Gruaud-Larose, Libations Editor
