Mulled Mead and Mulled Wine... MULLED, say what?

[Steve]

I've often wondered what 'Mulled' was. What made Mulled Wine distinct
from plain wine and what made Mulled Mead different from mead. A while
back I was researching British gin, and generally unique British food
and drink, and came across a wine distributor's internet site that
offered Mulling Syrup, but there weren't any details about exactly
what that was.

Finally, my curiousity go the best of me and I had to researk
'mulling'. It turns out, it simply means 'spiced'; spiced wine and
spiced mead.

Typical Mulling Spices -
cinnamon  cloves, nutmeg, mace, star anise, allspice berries, cardamom
pods, slices of fresh ginger, orange zest and lemon zest, allspice,
hibiscus, juniper berry, bayleaf, ...other in various combinations.

A very popular brand seems to be Raven's Original Mulling Spice-
http://www.ravensoriginal.com/spice.html
which is a combination of-
cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, orange, lemon and sugar
and is used for wine, mead, tea, punch, cider, and baking.

If that is not to your liking, here is a recipe to make your own
Holiday Mulled beverage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/features/christmas_2002/mulled_wine.shtml

Anybody here ever had a Mulled beverage, and would you care to
enlighten us with your opinion?

Just thought I would passs that along.

bboy_mn