How to Make Mulled Cider | Easy Recipe — Smartblend (2024)

This mulled cider recipe is mellow and fruity. With kicks of spices and sweet clementine to warm you up during this winter season.

To cover all things mulled cider, I've included a basic recipe for the most easy and delicious mulled cider, as well as a non-alcoholic mulled cider alternative and a boozier spiced rum mulled cider recipe.

The Christmas season is now getting into full swing. Which means it's a perfectly acceptable time for mulled cider and Hot Toddies. Recently I’ve published an article on how to make mulled wine, non-alcoholic mulled wine AND mulled pomegranate juice. To which you can find here. However, what I'm yet to do is an article on mulled cider. Which we will cover today!

What is mulled cider?

There seems to be some debate and confusion over what exactly mulled cider is. You see, here in the UK cider is an alcoholic fermented apple juice. Usually drank heavily by the good people of Somerset. However, in America, cider is referred to as unfiltered apple juice. Which is non alcoholic. Or as we would refer to it here in the UK… Apple juice.

Hence the confusion over mulled cider. Is it alcoholic, is it not? Is it apple juice mixed with rum or brandy, or alcoholic cider? Where you’re from determines the answer to those questions. Here in the UK mulled cider is a spice infused hot alcoholic cider. So that is what we will be making today.

I have however included a non-alcoholic version that uses apple juice to keep the mindful drinkers out there happy. As well as a boozier rum version to keep the heavy drinkers happy. All three of these recipes can be found below. So keep on scrolling!

History of mulled cider - Mulled Cider Origin

Before we jump into making our mulled cider. Lets just quickly cover the history. If not interesting it will certainly provide you with a story to tell whilst you’re waiting for your cider to mull.

As long as wine and cider has been available, it seems people have taken to mulling it for one reason or another. Such as mulled wine being infused to cover up harsh tasting wine, preserve it and act as a somewhat medieval medicine. To which I covered in my mulled wine recipe.

It seems however, that mulled cider comes from an old pagan tradition called wassailing. As it shares an awful lot of similarities.

Wassail comes from the Anglo-Saxon phrase ‘waes hael’, which means ‘good health’. The wassail was a drink made of mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar, served from huge bowls usually made of silver.

So lets jump into our mulled cider recipe and get wassailing!

is mulled cider gluten free

Depending on how you make it, mulled cider is gluten free. Though always check the cider you’re using first just to be on the safe side.

How to serve mulled cider

Mulled cider should be served hot to warm the co*ckles of your heart. To serve mulled cider, simply heat it up in a pan on low heat until you reach a drinkable temperature then pour it into heat proof glasses or mugs.

Can mulled cider be served cold?

With all that being said, mulled cider can be served cold if you prefer.

Cold mulled cider can be served over ice. This works either way - the American method or British. But it does tend to work better with the American version. That being spiced apple juice.

If you are going with the American version but keeping it alcohol. Cold mulled cider works well with brandy.

what temperature should mulled cider be served at

That get’s me nicely onto what temperature mulled cider should be served at for the ideal drinking experience.

I recommend serving mulled cider between 160 degrees F (71.1 degrees C) and 185 degrees F (85 degrees C).

Though I understand no one is going to start sticking temperature probs in the mix to get the ideal temperature. So a better way of recommending this would be to serve Mulled Cider at the same temperature you would have a tea, coffee, or hot chocolate.

You want it to be a nice drinkable temperature. Not boiling, but not cold.

Can you make mulled cider with apple juice

We’ve spoke throughout about this mulled cider recipe being an old fashioned mulled cider with actual cider. But we’ve also spoke about making it with apple juice. Which yes, yes you can.

To make mulled cider with apple juice to follow the recipe but cut down the sugar and swap out the cider for apple juice. Jump to the bottom of this page where I’ll go into more detail about apple juice mulled cider in the non-alcoholic section.

Mulled cider with wine

Another niche variety people often ask is about mulled cider with wine. Now I’ve previously spoke in depth about my mulled wine recipe. Which is very similar to this mulled cider recipe. If you don’t know which one you want, why not go in the middle and add a dash of wine to your mulled cider?

To try this, follow the below recipe but instead of using 1 litre of cider, use 500ml (or half a large bottle) of cider and 500ml of a white wine.

Wine that naturally has apple flavours throughout such as Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc work the best for this.

American Mulled Cider vs English Mulled Cider

As I keep mentioning the difference between American mulled cider and English mulled cider. Let’s just recap so you fully understand. American cider is what us brits would call apple juice. And English cider is what you Americans would call Hard cider.

You can make mulled cider with either variety. Non alcoholic or alcoholic. American alcoholic cider will usually have a non alcoholic apple juice base with added spirits like Brandy or Rum, whereas British cider starts with an alcoholic cider (or hard cider for you American’s) base.

The British way is what is consider old fashioned or traditional Mulled cider. As it all began when our ancestors would mull cider to preserve it, which would natural ferment into something alcoholic.

Does mulled cider need to be refrigerated

That is an interesting question, as following on from the above. Mulled cider was created as a way to preserve apple juice prior to the invention of the refridgerator. So strictly speaking, no, mulled cider does not need to be refrigerated. Especially if you purchasing shop bought bottles.

However, I always recommend ESPECIALLY if you’re making it yourself to store it refrigerated.

Can you reheat mulled cider?

You can reheat mulled cider. Part of the recipe is to heat the entire thing but maybe you want to make a few bottles in advance (which we will speak about more) in which case it’s totally fine to reheat.

Keep in mind the more you heat and re heat the mix, the more flavours will ‘burn’ off. Meaning, it’ll get less and less flavoursome.

That being said you’d have to reheat the same glass a bunch of times for that to happen so don’t even worry about it.

Can you make mulled cider in advance

Absolutely. I recommend trying this recipe once, then if you like it, making it again in bulk. Then bottle your cider up in cute little self labelled bottles so you have mulled cider throughout the entire season.

You can also gift it to friends and family if you want.

how long does mulled cider last

Refrigerated in a bottle with a closed cap. This mulled cider will last around 2 weeks, maybe longer but I’d stick to 2 weeks as it’ll slowly start losing its fresh flavour the longer you leave it.

Though always give it a smell before heating it up. If anything seems off, just throw it out.

Mulled cider in crock pot

Recently mulled cider made in crock pots and slow cookers have became popular. And I can see why, it’s a great way to make it.

My recommendation is to use a crock pot or slow cooker if you intend on serving this at a Christmas party.

The top positive to using a slow cooker or crock pot is that you can keep it constantly at the right temperature. Which means you don’t have to constantly re heat it every time you want a glass. Which is an absolute nightmare at party’s. So using a slow cooker with a big ladle is perfect for setting the right temperature and letting people help themselves.

When I work bars over the festive season, I use a soup heater to serve both mulled cider and mulled wine. You’ve probably seen it done before as that’s the industry standard in bars serving hot festive tipples.

Why is mulled wine called mulled

The term "mull" denotes the action of incorporating spices into a beverage, commonly wine or cider, to impart heat, sweetness, and flavor to it.

Mulled cider spices

For our mulled cider spice mix, we’re going to keep it simple with;

• Star anise

• Cinnamon

• Clove

That’s going to be you basic spice mix for any Christmas tipple. Once you’ve mastered those spices, you can start adding things such as Ginger or Sumac to really give it a punch. But we like to keep things simple here.

Top tip; That same spice mixed will be used for Mulled wine, and spiced poached pears.

Mulled Cider Recipe Video

Mulled cider recipe variations

Above, is my basic recipe for making the perfect mulled cider. However, maybe you’re sober, Maybe you don't drink. Or perhaps you do want to drink and would prefer a higher ABV. Then not to worry. Below are two variations you can make to transform your mulled cider into a non-alcoholic version or a more boozy mulled cider version.

Non-alcoholic mulled cider recipe

For this, we will do the same as the above however, there are two changes we will need to make for the perfect non-alcoholic mulled cider.

Change 1: Quite obvious this one. If you want a non alcoholic version, you need to remove the alcohol. So instead of using dry cider, we are going to instead use cloudy apple juice.

Change 2: With us now removing the alcohol and replacing our cider with cloudy apple juice. The sweetness of our mulled cider will have to be adjusted. In the recipe above we add 100 grams of sugar to sweeten our mulled cider. This time we are not going to add any sugar at all to our cider. The apple juice and clementine will be sweet enough without the addition of any extra sugar

Boozy Mulled Cider Recipe

For this recipe we are going to make one single change that will give our mulled cider a boozy lift, as well as adding to those spice notes and adding a touch of toffee and molasses flavours to our winter warmer.

After your cider has been nicely heating and infusing for 15 minutes. Moments before we serve it, We are going to add 100ml of spiced rum to our mix.

The spiced rum will add to those winter spices nicely. If you prefer more of a botanical touch, you can add 100ml of London dry gin instead of the rum.

To best describe the taste of both - Drinking the rum spiked mulled cider feels like you are outside on a crisp autumn evening, wrapped up tightly with fluffy coats, wind pricking your nose and cider warming your lips and stomach. Whilst the gin spiked cider feels like you’re in a cosy cabin, sitting besides a log burning fire looking out the window onto a snow covered ground. How poetic right?

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