A lovely celebration of traditionally festive spices such as cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg, it’s also really easy to make.

Ingredients:

• 2 clementines
• peel of 1 lemon
• peel of 1 lime
• 250g caster sugar
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 fresh bay leaves
• 1 whole nutmeg
• 1 whole vanilla pod, halved
• 2 star anise
• 2 bottles of Chianti, or other Italian red wine

Method

Peel large sections of peel from your clementines, lemon and lime using a speed peeler.

Put the sugar in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the pieces of peel and squeeze in the clementine juice.

Add the cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and about 10-12 gratings of nutmeg. Throw in your halved vanilla pod and stir in just enough red wine to cover the sugar. Let this simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved into the red wine and then bring to the boil.

Keep on a rolling boil for about 4-5 minutes, or until you’ve got a beautiful thick syrup.

When your syrup is ready turn the heat down to low and add your star anise and both bottles of wine. Gently heat the wine and when it’s warm, ladle into glasses and serve.