Borough Market - mulled wine, Prosecco and challah braided bread

Mulled wine, warm wine, with fun flavours.

If you want clothes, go to Brixton. But if you want food and drink, go to Borough Market.

 Nearest stations

London Bridge

Overground 

Underground Jubilee and Northern Line

Waitrose mulled wine tasting and general jollity

Waitrose is advertising general jollity at its supermarkets for the next few days. Today, December 11th 2017, outside the store they had a tasting of two tonic waters, a mulled wine and some chocolates.

Here are some of the displays outside in the area selling items for gardens and outdoors.

The windows were decorated. Even the checkout tills had bases decorated with the theme.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
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London Wine Fair - my favourite pictures ; plum, mulled wine, squirrels and Marilyn Monroe

Nyetimber bus. Of course as it's a London wine fair I have to start with a wonderful award winning wine from England.

Wine and Spirit Education Trust. A reminder of what I learned on my Level One course. How different wines paired with lemon or cheese or a sweet such as marshmallow will taste differently.

The free massage. Of course they want to sell you the machine at £149. The massage was really good, like three rotating golf balls either side of your neck or back or wherever you put the machine.

Speakers Corner

The audience members did blind tasting trying to guess the wine, whilst so did the speaker, Joe Wadsack. He told us what he looked for when guessing which wine it was. Red or white grape? Which grape? Aromatic or not? Which flavour? Tannic or acidic? From warm or cool climate country? If you can identify the grape, you know where it is likely to come from. Oak aged or not? My favourite wine was the sparkling white sweet Nyetimber wine, from England.

Origin colourful bottles and a stand with a tree. A major exporter from South Africa, now expending and innovating with wines sourced from other countries.

Plum wine from Japan on the stand showing Sake.

Red Squirrel wine. The rare red squirrel is beloved by the British. A recently set up company, 2012, specialise in importing unusual wines with unusual packaging.

Marilyn Monroe on label

Mulled wine from Forest Glow gives you a warm glow. (They were also smart enough to offer a free tasting of something on a cracker - a good move at wine fairs and in pubs, found everywhere at Tapas bars in Spain, and increasingly popular in England. Some people are willing to pay. Pubs which offer mulled wine and free food before lunch on Sundays in England in winter time are packed with drinkers who stay on to drink wine and dine.) 

Their wine is from Sweden, Europe, blended with fruit and flowers and spices.

More information from:

Nyetimber wine www.nyetimber.com

WSET Wine and Spirit Eduction Trust www.wsetglobal.com

Massager: www.begate.co.uk

http://www.marilynwines.com/WINES/MARILYN-MERLOT

Origin wines: www.origin

Plum wine and sake: Daishchi Sake Brewery Co Ltd 

Red Squirrel Wine: www.redsquirrelwine.agency

Mulled wine from Sweden: A Taste Of Ltd / Forest Glow www.forestglow.co.uk

If you are in the trade and missed this event, or want to read about the next one, it will be the 37th London Wine Fair, 22nd to 24th May 2017, again at Olympia, London, England. 

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Chuck Burger Bar Hatch End and Shoreditch

If you walk or drive through Hatch End over Christmas you'll see the big red Father Christmas on the outside raised seating area of Chuck Burger Bar. Santa is illuminated and the two reindeer at his feet, outlined in white lights are moving. I caught them on video.

On Dec 18 they took part in the Hatch End Street event. Eleni, an enthusiastic member of staff wearing a red Santa hat was cheerfully giving out a taste of red mulled wine and pecan brownie or chocolate and fudge brownie. Both were delicious.

When she told me the pecan brownie was served in Lazy Sundae I thought she meant Lazy Sunday. When I went onto their website to check the menu I saw it was Lazy Sundae.

The Hatch End branch is in the middle of the short high street near Hatch End station which is on the Euston-Watford line.

For more details of the menu see their website.
Chuck Burger Bar
322-324 Uxbridge Road, Hatch End, HA5 4HR
Tel 0208 421 4149.

Shoreditch
Chuck Burger Bar
19 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3EJ.

Near Liverpool Street station on the Metropolitan line, London underground train.

I see from their website that they also deliver around the Shoreditch area near their restaurant.
They are open every day except Monday, roughly noon until just before or after midnight, at the earlier time of 11 am at the weekend on both Saturday and Sunday. To echo their witty punning menu, just the place for a Lazy Sundae on a (lazy) Sunday.
chuckburgerbar.com

(Pictures being added shortly and/or see previous posts)


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, English tutor.

Santa, lights and mulled wine in Hatch End

Hatch End was celebrating Christmas today.

The announcement was on the railings as you drove through Hatch End. Pulver Carr estate agents had the sign saying: Hatch End Broadway  Christmas Street Event  Friday 18th December  4pm-8 pm

Horse drawn carriage rides, Santas's Grotto and also in Pulver Carr come and meet our special guest Chewbacca from Star Wars.

Santa was in his grotto in Hearnden Funeral Directors but Santa was very much alive. Mincemeat pies and chocolates were at the door, the children could receive a wrapped gift and a collection box was being shaken. You could pose for a photo with Santa.

The sleigh rides (£3.50 per person) were in great demand and the tiny tots seemed to love it. I liked the red covering with the words Merry Christmas written in capital letters large on the side and back of the carriage. The two white horses tossed their heads and seemed very good-tempered considering they kept having to negotiate the turn at the edge of the road with traffic all around.

On the platform outside Chuck burgers restaurant two of the staff, Eleni and another, were in red hats and Eleni was serving passers by a small cup of mulled wine and a piece of chocolate brownie.

Pecan brownies served with the Lazy Sundae.

For menu see their website:

http://www.chuckburgerbar.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/CHUCK-A3-MENU-20151.pdf

Chuck Burger Bar, Uxbridge Road, Hatch End, HA5 4HR

If you missed the mulled wine given out on Friday 18th December you can find it in Chuck's Burger on their menu over Christmas.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Mulled wine to warm winter walkers in warm pubs or at parties

Mulled Wine
In the chilly UK winter pubs in Hampstead often sell mulled wine to warm those who have walked across the heath and end up want to warm themselves by a log fire whilst drinking warm wine. At home for a Christmas party you can make mulled wine from a base of red wine. But watch out that you and your guests don't assume it's low alcohol and keep drinking it, if it's in a public place and arriving party-goers are able to add spirits which you have left lying nearby, or that visitors have brought to add to the pot. You need to ensure somebody is bar tender watching the mixing and serving of the punch.

I once started drinking a low alcohol punch. Somebody kindly offered to refill my empty plastic disposable cup, and I after I queried why the flavour had changed, I realised that if I drank the second re-mix, I would not be able to drive home and mor would the others in my car.


Mulled wine is basically red wine heated, in a punch bowl if you are making large quantities, with added herbs to float on top, fruit for flavour and health and soft drinks to lower the alcohol content, maybe a mixer, and spirits to increase the alcohol.

You can buy mulled wine sachets.

Looking at the picture I can see the mulled wine is made by Schwartz. As you can see from the picture it is hanging in the wine bottle section of the Morrisons supermarket in the branch in this photograph. 

If you want to make your own, you can add spices such as cinnamon and clove or nutmeg.

(See later post on Mulled wine in Waitrose.)

Picture by Angela Lansbury.

Travel writer and photographer.

See my other posts and pictures on Lulu.com, Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook. Please like me, follow me and look at my books.

Author and speaker.

Wine Ice Cream from mercers dairy.com, including mulled wine

Here's something to take to a Xmas party. Wine ice cream. All over the USA. You can order online.

When will it come to Europe? I'll look for a recipe to make your own.A good way to use up leftover wine. Tip it over dry cake or ice cream.

Ice Cream T-Shirts
I also like the t-shirts. But you have to order ice cream to qualify for being able to buy a t-shirt. I can't order because I am not in the USA. Does anybody want to send me a tee-shirt!

Wishlists
Maybe they should start a wishlist for tee-shirts.  Every company which sells retail or through websites should have wish lists as well as wedding lists. That would help enormously when buying Xmas and birthday gifts. Have a monthly or annual giveaway to keep people coming back.

I watched an amusing video of people trying out various flavours. Chocolate. Merlot. Strawberry sparkle.

Wine Ice Cream Flavours from Mercer's (alphabetically):
Cherry Merlot
Chocolate Cabernet
Peach White Zinfandel
Port
Red Raspberry Chardonnay
Riesling
Spice (mulled wine)

The HQ seems to be in New York but they are all over north america with one spot in the north of south america.

I looked at the link wondering if I would find the tee shirts but could find only ordering ice cream.
http://www.mercersdairy.com/#!shop-online/c1prr

I wonder how wine ice cream would suit hot Singapore. In England in November it's so chilly that our thoughts are on mulled wine more than wine ice cream. Hot toddy and mulled wine.


If you are driving or working and don't want to go anywhere near alcohol or caffeine (my doctor told me not to drink coffee after lunch time, you can make a punch bowl with a non-alcoholic punch or one which looks like red sangria and keep diluting it.

I checked Wikipedia and was amazed to discover several entries on wine ice cream.

Wine ice cream, zabaglione, made with wine and egg yolks, is popular in Argentina.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabaione

Note that the Italian spelling is different, so that is not necessarily a typo, or I hope a not a spell checker fairy's change.


Angela Lansbury Travel writer and photographer.

London is cold New Year's Eve - time for mulled wine - and TV from Australia

London is cold coming up to New Year's Eve. I took this sign outside Bar None in Upper Regent street earlier this month. £3.95 for mulled wine, with 50p of your money donated to Save the Children.

A public fireworks display is in the centre of London at midnight. Even if you are nowhere near the main display, or others, you are likely to see fireworks overhead as you walk or drive home, or especially from an upstairs bar or restaurant or hotel room. Take warm clothes and keep them handy even if you are indoors in case somebody suddenly decides let's go outside, let's go on the patio, in the garden, on the roof terrace, whatever. 

The entrances to the underground railway stations will be very crowded just after midnight as everybody decides to go home - or go on to another party. When I was there last year it took about ten to fifteen minutes just to get into the station. The street had a huge queue marshalled by tape barriers with police with walkie talkies direction the crowds. So add that to your travelling time. 

Seeing the huge stationery or slow-moving lines of people, we went back to the bar -restaurant where we had had dinner and drinks earlier, and waited another 15 minutes. We considered walking to another station but went back to the first one. 

On the internet you can already see the celebrations worldwide, starting in Australia and New Zealand, then Asia, then Europe, then UK and Scotland, finally west coat USA then West coast USA.

What do you need to celebrate at home whilst watching the world as an armchair traveller? Champagne - great deals from supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi. Party poppers. 

Fun candles from Poundland shop.

www.poundland.co.uk

"Poundland is the largest single price value retailer in the UK, with over 500 stores offering a great range at Amazing Value!"

What can you eat with your champagne? Panettone - mine's from Fellini in Hatch End. Fellini and the other Italian restaurants will be having parties tonight. How do you remember the spelling of Fellini and Penettone? Fellini - double ll like legs eleven (as they call in UK Bingo halls). Panettone - think Pa-net-tone. Or Pa-nett-one. Pa-netto-ne. Pane-TT-one.

Or keep looking at the word and spell it aloud three times. There are two letters N, two letter E, two letters N, but the N is at both ends separated by the double TT. Pa-NE-TT-0-NE.

Happy New Year!