Create your own mulling spices to make a delicious mulled wine, spiced apple cider, tea, coffee, syrup or even stovetop potpourri. This simple mulling spices recipe is a fragrant blend of cinnamon sticks, allspice, whole cloves, and orange zest.
It makes a beautiful homemade holiday gift, too – so fast and easy to throw together with a free printable label right in this post!
Throughout fall and winter, I love to sip and savor the warmth, flavors, and aroma of mulled cider, mulled wine, mulled syrup and even stovetop potpourri.
Come December, I love gifting. Not just any gift though, because I love a thoughtfully curated gift basket or a homemade gift. Something from the heart, which often means something from the kitchen.
Don’t miss my round up of 25 Easy and Beautiful Homemade Christmas Gifts. These mulling spices make one of our favorite homemade items to gift friends and neighbors.
Homemade Mulling Spices
Luckily, I’ve found a variety of ways to combine my love of warm and cozy scents and flavors with my love of gifting. These mulling spices are such a useful, charming gift that anyone on your list will love!
This homemade mulling spices recipe makes a thoughtful gift! Tuck your homemade mulling spices into a cute little jar (details below) with the beautiful free printable label for friends, family, neighbors and co-workers.
You can gift them alone or create a beautiful gift basket with a bottle or wine and cider. When they are left as whole spices, they are ideal for mulled wine or mulled cider, but they can also be ground and used in baked goodies like pumpkin cheesecake or apple bread!
What are Mulling Spices?
They are spices used to add seasonal flavor and aroma to wine, cider, and syrup which and so much more, steeped in hot liquid and discarded. “Mull” is an infusing process that enhances the flavor for fall and winter.
You can also pulverize in a coffee grinder to make ground spices, perfect for baking! They are amazing blended into your favorite fall cookies, breads, muffins and more! Simply add or substitute a recipe that calls for cinnamon, allspice, pumpkin pie spice or apple pie spice!
Chances are, you have most of the ingredients to make your own mulling spices in your pantry! However, they’re easily accessible both online and in your local grocery store.
You can bottle the blend for yourself or share with others for a beautiful homemade gift or a thoughtful hostess gift.
These four core spices create a foundation for the most warm and cozy mulling spice recipe you can imagine!
You can customize your mulling spices to your taste. I’m sharing the most classic recipe along with variations to try!
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Cinnamon Sticks – You’ll crush them a bit to break them down for this spice blend.
- Allspice – I like to use true allspice seeds because they work beautifully in this mulling spice blend. However, if you can’t find seeds you can also use this homemade allspice blend. Just note that ground spices will add a stronger flavor to your ciders, wines, teas, etc, instead of just steeping in an infuser and it can be difficult to blend the ground spices with whole.
- Cloves – Cloves are a dark, fragrant spice made from flower buds of a specific evergreen tree. They add an intense, slightly bitter and sweet flavor that makes your mulling spice blend come to life!
- Orange Peel Dried orange peel works best here. It’s so easy to make your own dried orange peels – I’ve got a great dedicated post that shows you how!
Variations
There are so many ways to add more spice to your life! Anything you can think of that is a dried fruit or spice could be a wonderful addition to your mulling spice blend.
- Crystallized Ginger
- Brown Sugar
- Star Anise
- Vanilla Beans
- Peppercorns
- Raisins
- Currants
- Plums
- Cranberries
How to Make Mulling Spices
- Crush Cinnamon – Using a meat pounder, crush cinnamon sticks into bits.
- Dry Orange Peels (as directed below)
- Combine – In a small bowl, mix the cinnamon bits, allspice, cloves, and orange peel and jar.
How to Crush Cinnamon
With a Rolling Pin
Place cinnamon sticks in resealable bag with excess air removed. Place a towel on top to prevent tearing holes in the bag. Gently roll over cinnamon sticks until crushed into pieces. 
With a Mallet
Place cinnamon sticks in resealable bag with excess air removed. Place a towel on top to prevent tearing holes in the bag. Gently hammer until broken. ***This method also works as therapy.
How to Dry Orange Peels
- Peel orange rinds into very slender slices.
- Bake citrus zest or peel on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 1 hour at 200°.
Tip
Use the 1x 2x 3x tab in the printable recipe card to multiply the ingredients and make a larger batch! You can also use my printable measurement conversion worksheet to make the math a little easier!
How to Use
(For Tea, Mulled Wine, Coffee and Apple Cider)
- Place the spice blend in a tea infuser, wrap in a piece of cheesecloth or muslin bag.
- Pour liquid over the top and warm.
- Allow to simmer for at least 15 minutes, but up to four hours.
Serving Suggestions
- Non Alcoholic Mulled Wine
- Mulled Wine
- Apple Cider
- Pear Cider
- Use them (ground) in baked goods in place of pumpkin pie spice, etc like these pumpkin gooey butter cake bars.
- Sangria
- Tea
- Coffee
- Kitchen Salts
- Infuse Sugar
- Syrup
- Make an Extract
- Bath Salts
- Bath Soak
- Potpourri
How To Store
Room Temperature – Store in an airtight container, preferably in a dark cabinet up to 1 year.
Free Printable Mulling Spices Gift Label
They’re perfect to share with friends and family along with a gift of free printable labels to make homemade gift-giving even easier.
Rather than using labels in a specified size, I purchase sticker sheets because they’re easily customizable and you don’t have to line everything up just right in the printer.
You can download the mulling spices label and directions here to pair with pretty glass spice jars! Unfortunately, the spice jars I used in these images are no longer available, but these 6 ounce square jars, these traditional four ounce spice jars with black lids, and these with pretty bamboo lids should work well!
This makes a beautiful gift on its own or you can pair it with a spice ball and bottle of wine or apple cider.
More Kitchen Gifts
Mulling Spices
Ingredients
- 10 small cinnamon sticks
- ¼ cup allspice
- ¼ cup cloves
- ¼ cup orange peel
Instructions
- Using a meat pounder or rolling pin, crush cinnamon sticks into bits.
- Peel orange rinds into very slender slices. Bake slices on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 1 hour at 200°.
- In a small bowl, mix cinnamon bits, allspice, cloves and orange peel and jar.
Julie’s Tips
Variations
- Crystallized Ginger
- Brown Sugar
- Star Anise
- Vanilla Beans
- Peppercorns
- Raisins
- Currants
- Plums
- Cranberries
To Use
Use 2-3 tablespoons of mulling spices per two bottles of wine for mulling. Use the same 2-3 tablespoons of spices for a half gallon of apple cider. Place the spice blend in a tea infuser, wrap in a piece of cheesecloth or muslin bag. Pour liquid over the top and warm. Allow to simmer for at least 15 minutes, but up to four hours.To Store
Room Temperature – Store in an airtight container, preferably in a dark cabinet up to one year.Estimated nutrition information is provided as a courtesy and is not guaranteed.
Explore More
Originally published December 13, 2017, updated Aug 11, 2020
This looks so beautiful – perfect for the holidays! What type of wine would you recommend pairing this with (red/white, dry/sweet)?
You can pair it with white or red, but I prefer using a dry ten like a Cabernet or Zinfandel. Enjoy!
This is such a simple, lovely gift!
Meghan
What a lovely gift idea! I’m wondering where I might find the spice bottles that you used for this project?
Thanks, Jean
You can use any spice bottles, but I purchased these at Freund Container. If you need to scale the labels down, you can adjust your printer to print at 75%. Enjoy!
Beautiful! The links for the labels aren’t working for me though. Is there another way to find them?
I am so sorry, it’s a hiccup with my site redesign – they’re going out in my newsletter and I’m trying to get a fix asap. Thanks for your patience!
This is truly gorgeous! I would love to receive this gift.