Winter Wassail is s a warm celebration of winter with seasonal spices, cider, and a little spike if you wish!
The Winter Solstice is next weekend, and I can hardly wait!
The darkest day of the year?!
Yep. I love it. For years this beach-bum dreaded the shortest day of the year…until I realized that really all it means is that it can’t get any darker! In other words…longer days, signs of spring, and warmer weather are on their way!
Winter Wassail cheer!
We still have a good 3 months of snowy winter left where I live. But every fall when our huge magnolia tree in the front sheds its leaves everywhere, it leaves behind its reminder that spring will come again. When we first moved here I remember wondering what those large, fuzzy buds were on this beautiful bare tree. Come May those buds are one of the first things to bloom in our yard like a big, warm hug for making it through our harsh winter. During blizzards of snow and frigid temps I often look to those buds to cheer me up!
Celebrate!
So for the last handful of years, we celebrate the darkest day of the year instead of dreading it! Because we do need winter. A time to rest, rejuvenate…and pull out big warm blankets, fuzzy wool socks, and enjoy the silence of the snow.
What is Winter Wassail?
Wassail is a simple mulled cider and wine, and now that we have a house full of little ones that like to celebrate the seasons with us, I keep the drink spiking to just the mugs for my husband and I. It is such a simple way to make the house smell amazing and give your family or guests coming in and out a warming drink to celebrate the winter season.
So cozy up to the fire, and say cheers to the darkest day of the year!
Traditional Winter Wassail
Ingredients
- 7-8 cups organic apple cider
- 2 cups organic cranberry juice
- 10 whole cloves
- 10 allspice berries
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 organic orange sliced into rounds (if organic is unavailable, just use a conventional one BUT you will want to peel it first.)
- *Optional: 1 cup dark ale or wine of your choosing OR ½ cup rum or brandy in the pot. If you don’t want the whole pot spiked, you can do splashes of the alcohol in each mug. Since I serve this to my girls too I just add wine to the mug that my husband and I drink from.
- *Optional: organic honey to sweeten if you desire – I usually don’t but it is good!
Instructions
- Tie up the cloves and allspice in a cheesecloth or small piece of tea towel using kitchen twine.
- Put everything into a large soup or stock pot and bring to a low simmer.
- Lower the heat and very low simmer the mixture for 2 hours before serving. Keep it on low or use a crockpot on low if serving over hours.
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Tips:
- You could use a slow cooker instead of stovetop to make this too. I would go on low for a good 4 hours or so, and then you can just keep it on low or warm for serving.
- This is a great drink to double up and keep on the stovetop while guests arrive for holiday gatherings. Not only does it make the house smell amazing, but it is a pretty allergen friendly, crowd pleasing drink to serve.
- These are the glass mugs
I love to serve our wassail in! I also found these pretty smaller glass mugs that would be nice to have a couple sets of to use for serving at a family gathering or party. - For tying up the spices I just use an old kitchen tea towel that I have cut up for this sort of thing – they wash out nice and I can re-use them. Cheesecloth works really nice too!
I love to serve our wassail in! I also found these pretty 
that would be nice to have a couple sets of to use for serving at a family gathering or party.
works really nice too!This post was shared at Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday & Allergy Free Wednesday!
I just bought fresh apple cider and didn’t know how I would use it (not a big fan of plain apple cider). This looks amazing and something my whole family will love! Thank you for the recipe…can’t wait to make it later this week.
That’s great Kristin! Enjoy it!
The color of the wassail pictured here is one of my favorites! I have never had wassail before, even though I wrote a blog post about it! In all honestly, while the recipe looks absolutely delicious, I have found that my sweet tooth has diminished so significantly that sweet drinks are too sweet for me. Nonetheless, cranberry juice is not sweet, unsweetened, so that may mitigate some of the sweetness of the apple juice. I think I may be drawn to egg nog, non alcoholic! I bet you have a recipe for that too!
Hi Sandrine! Yes I do have some eggnog I think you would enjoy! https://www.raisinggenerationnourished.com/2014/11/simple-quick-eggnog/
I also think you might enjoy this wassail more with a bigger cranberry juice ratio to back off on the sweetness!
Mmm I love wassail. Thanks for posting. Hello from Fat Tuesday.
This is such a beautiful recipe! I love everything about it – the spices + the apple cider and cranberry juice! I can’t wait to try it next week, I bet it’s so delicious. Beautiful photos too! xo
I love wassail, and I love that this recipe doesn’t include a ton of extra sugar. So many other recipes include a ton of brown sugar and things like that, which isn’t possible for me. Thanks for sharing!
Glorious pictures! I like this recipe. So festive. I have made similar but the cranberry juice is a perfect addition to my ‘ol stand-by recipe! Thanks for sharing.
Here’s to a flavourful HEALTHY winter. Celebrating Solstice!
Never had this before – but it sure looks and sounds yummy!
I’ve never heard of wassail before but it looks and sounds sublimely nourishing so I can’t wait to give it a try. Thanks for the inspiration! 🙂
What a beautiful post! Love the photos, the recipe, everything! Merry Christmas!
This is so pretty and I can see it being very popular at a Christmas gathering. But I really want to TASTE it! I love the cloves and ale. How earthy and historic it sounds. Pinning for later when I can have juice again. 🙂
Oh, this sounds lovely, festive, and warming… I especially love anything with cranberry this time of the year 🙂
I have never had this before (or ever heard of it until now) but it sounds like a drink I must make! I’m actually heading to a friend’s house for dinner on Saturday and I think this might be something great to make.
It’s as though I can smell this beautiful fragrance through my computer! Can’t wait to try this!
Love the adding rum option! This will be served at Christmas for sure!!!
How many services does this wassail recipe create?
I would say about 5 mug fulls or 8 smaller mugs/tea cup sized cup fulls depending on how big your mugs are.
servings*
Gorgeous! Pinning to my holiday foods board!
Oh love Apple Cider! This mix of spices with it sounds so delicious.
What a fun drink to make and serve; a nice break from plain apple cider and hot cocoa.
Never heard of wassail but I love the combination of ingredients for it!
I love this drink + all of the yummy spices in it. I missed making it this year on the solstice, but think I’ll make some for the holidays anyway 🙂
This is so inspiring. It’s cold in Arizona right now. My family would love this for Christmas!
Yum! I just had a boozy version of this at a Christmas party the other night. Super delicious!
Hey, any suggestion for what kind of wine goes well..Thanks!
Hi Shalilee! You’ll see everything across the board from fruitier and dry white wines to reds when you look up traditional wassail recipes. I personally prefer a lighter white wine because I feel like reds make it too “thick” if that even makes sense? I felt like red took over the spices and cider flavor too much, while something lighter just accented it. Does that help? Make sense? I’m not a wine expert but this is how I have experienced it!
What a warming drink…the spices really seal it! I remember I had an ice skating routine to a song called “Wassail,” of course I had no idea what it was back then!
I’ve never tried wassail before, but I loooove the way it sounds! I think I have everything to make it, too!
I’ve never heard of wassail before but sounds so cozy and delicious! I love warm winter drinks like this one and I’ll have to make it soon.
This is a lovely winter drink. I wonder if I can make it in the instant pot. I recently found the keep warm function on IP being so handy!
I love caffeine free beverage in the winter. I’ll be making this lovely drink for sure!
Best rum to use???? Flavored or no???
That’s up to you! I prefer it not flavored!
I am not able to find whole allspice berries, would ground allspice work, if so, any idea how much? Thanks!
Hi Melissa! Yes – but not too much. I’d just go with a pinch and you can always add more.
Hello, maybe I missed it in the post, but is there a conversion for cinnamon sticks to ground cinnamon or the cloves to ground cloves for example in the powdered form for each of those?
Hi Steven! You’ll want to use the whole form of these spices because you won’t want the powder floating in your drink! The whole form allows it to infuse the drink and keep it clear!
Is it ok to make it the day before and warm it up?
Hi Payton! Yes that is fine!
Renee,
I’ve never heard of this but it sounds like the most comforting drink. I’m going to whip this up this week! Thanks for sharing. ❤️
I hope you enjoy it Amy!
This has been my family’s go-to wassil every Christmas since it originally posted! I’ve found similar recipes since but for us this recipe comes the closest to what I grew up waking to every Christmas morning! Nothing like waking to the intoxicating smells of spices and warm out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls to catapult me back to my childhood! I’ve always loved the addition of cranberries and this is one of the main reasons I landed on this recipe.
In the past, I simply whipped it up in the crockpot early Christmas morning before everyone would wake, but this year I’m toying with the idea of making it in my Instant Pot so I too can sleep in a bit. 😉 Based on other recipes with this method, I’m thinking 10 minutes on high pressure (with the mulling spices in a strainer for easy removal) with a 10 minute natural release…then just keeping on the WARM feature. Thoughts? Would love to see an updated Instant Pot version of this holiday favorite! ☺
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe all those years ago!
Hi Amy! IP wassail sounds like a good idea! I think your 10 minutes and natural release would work great!
What kind of wine should I put in this?
Hi Mary! Anything red and dry – usually a cab or zin!