“Okay, let’s do this. My very first mulled wine from scratch.”
“Okay, just tell me what to do,” Emelie said.
“You can peel and slice those,” she said, pointing at a pile of potatoes on the kitchen counter and Emelie got started on the task.
When the potatoes were peeled it was time to cut the fresh ginger into cubes while Linn was measuring up cardamom seeds and cloves and putting them into the bucket. When Emelie was finished with the ginger, Linn grabbed it too, putting it into the bucket.
“A bit odd, mixing everything in a bucket,” Linn laughed, and poured sugar, raisins and a cinnamon stick into the mix.
She added the potatoes and the yeast and finished with a little more than a gallon of malt beer.
“Is this really going to turn into alcohol?”
She stared at her mother in disbelief, and Emelie explained how potatoes, sugar and yeast make alcohol.
“That’s how you make moonshine, you know”, Emelie added, winking.
“I wonder why people don’t do that instead of buying expensive alcohol at the off license,” she said.
“Because it isn’t as good, and it takes a lot of time. And because it’s illegal, so don’t get any ideas,” Emelie said, smiling.
When everything was in the bucket, Linn took a spoon and mixed it all together. It was supposed to be stirred well and the cinnamon stick and the cloves were spinning around in the whirlpool of sugar and malt beer. As the sugar dissolved into the mix she stopped stirring and sighed.
“Blimey, that was heavy, but I think that should do it,” she said, staring down into the cloudy, brown liquid.
She frowned.
“It doesn’t even look good, see for yourself,” she said, pointing.
Emelie looked down.
“But it smells good,” she said.
“You think? I don’t know…”
“But you don’t even like mulled wine, so it isn’t that strange.”
“Then how am I supposed to know if it turns out okay?”
Emelie got an idea.
“I know! We’ll arrange a mulled wine-tasting! It will be great!”
Linn’s face lit up.
“Yes, let’s invite Sussi and Stina and Andreas of course, and Oskar.”
“And Birgitta, she needs some love after the last round of paper hunting that didn’t result in anything. And Christer and Stig. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? When should we invite them?”
Linn read the recipe that the mulled wine needed to sit for three weeks in the bucket without anyone touching it.
“So, you’re not supposed to stir it?” Emelie asked.
“No, so we’ll have to tell the girls to not touch it,” Linn said.
“It won’t be a problem; they are never home nowadays. They sleep and eat here, otherwise they are only with friends, and Liv is in the stables,” she said.
But she said it with a smile. They had never played so much and spent so much time outside back in Växjö, and they seemed to be thriving. They were both doing well in school and loving life at Sardinön.
