Festive Mulling Spice Blends

Mulling Spice is festive and fun: and it goes in so many things, it’s the perfect way to get into the holiday spirit! You can put it in cider, in wine, in cocktails, in cookies and cake, in hot cocoa, in cranberry sauce, in a simmer pot – it’s super versatile. Bonus: it’s not just delicious, it’s got medicinal action too! So i wanted to share some of my favorite Mulling Spice blends with you – you can make some as gifts and make some for yourself!

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Ok! Let’s get into the spirit with Mulling Spices!

Mulling Spice blends can have lots of variation, but the basic blend usually has Cinnamon, Orange peel, and Allspice berries. You can put in lots of other things, but these three are kind of the core that everything else is built around.

When we look at the flavors represented, we see warmth and just a bit of sour – which is great for winter! The warming herbs (often there’s also Ginger, Cadarmom, Nutmeg, Clove, Anise, or even Black Peppercorn) stimulate digestion – which is helpful since foods tend to get heavier and often also fattier in the winter, especially historically. The warming herbs also increase circulation, which helps keep the body warm!

The sour notes from the Orange peel (often there’s also Lemon peel, Hawthorn berries, Rose hips, or even Apple. You can add Rooibos, also) aren’t just about flavor – there’s a lot of nutrients in those herbs that are harder to get in the wintertime – or at least, they were back before we had fresh fruit and veg available all year round.

So historically, thinking about cold, drafty homes and meeting places as well as the lack of fresh fruits/veg in winter, the blend’s ingredients really make a lot of sense!

Today, they’re not just delicious – of course they still do all those things for us. But there’s actually another really important reason to keep Mulling Spices in our modern lives, and that’s inflammation. All of these plants are helpful in fighting excess inflammation. It’s easier to get fresh vegetables in winter now and homes aren’t as cold and drafty as they once were, but today we battle high baseline inflammation levels, and the spices included in these blends all play a role in helping keep inflammation in check.

Here’s the blend we usually make:

1 part Ginger
1 part Orange Peel
1/2 part Goji berries & Hawthorn berries
1 part Allspice
1/2 part Cinnamon
1/2 part Cardamom
1/2 part Nutmeg
1/2 part Star Anise

From history times to today, Mulling Spice is actually an important health ally and a really elegant formula!

You can mull wine, you can mull cider… you can even mull hot chocolate! (full instructions for all of these in ​the Herbal Medicine Making course​!)

But did you know you can make Mulled Coffee too? Yep!

Here are two simple ways to do it:

1. Brew your coffee with the Mulling Spice right in it! You can absolutely put Mulling Spices into your coffee maker of choice – whether that’s a french press or a Mr. Coffee machine, just toss them in! For this method, powdered spices work best: they brew up faster, which is good since in a coffee maker, the water isn’t just sitting like a decoction or long infusion.

2. Make a strong decoction that has all your regular Mulling Spices plus Coffee in it. This will get you a slightly different flavor – you’ll get a little more bitter from the Coffee, but that’s not actually a bad thing: those bitter components help your liver. But you’ll also get more of the anti-oxidant aspects of Coffee – they take a little bit longer to come extract, so you actually get more in a decoction than when you just do a quick brew. If you want to get really fancy, you can also add a few slices of Reishi mushroom to your blend – and maybe even some cacao nibs!

Bonus way: Mulled Coffee Bitters!

Why not! It’s seasonal, fancy, delicious – and makes a great gift!

Just follow the regular instructions for making cocktail bitters in the Oxymels, Elixirs, & Cocktail Bitters chapter of ​the Herbal Medicine Making course​, using this recipe:

3 parts Coffee beans, coarsely ground 1 part Ginger 1 part Orange Peel 1 part Allspice 1/2 part Cinnamon 1/2 part Cardamom 1/2 part Nutmeg

Of course you can fiddle with the recipe if you like – it’s not set in stone! Make sure that you get a big enough part of the Coffee beans though, because that’s where the bitterness is coming from. If you prefer just a hint of Coffee, you could add another bitter agent – i might go with something like Centaury or Blessed Thistle, because they’re pretty much straight bitter without any other flavors in there to disrupt the Mulled theme. Reishi mushroom is another good option here. On the other hand, something like Calamus or Elecampane will add a totally new flavor dimension to the mix, but they will still be in line with the theme because they’re warming and have a “spicy” facet to their flavor.

Mulled Spice Cake (because, absolutely!):

Start with Simple Mills gluten free vanilla cake mix (you can make it from scratch too, or you can use any vanilla cake mix, whatever works best for you). Mix in all the things they tell you to mix in.

Then add WAY TOO MUCH ground Mulling Spice. You can use any of the variations that you like, but i’m going to do it like this: I’ll add ground Cinnamon, Cardamom, Allspice, and Nutmeg to the mix – about a tablespoon total.

Then i’ll put in candied Orange peel and candied Ginger, a lot of both – about half a cup each – chopped small, and some white raisins and currants. I’ll also add some sliced almonds, because ryn really likes cake to have crunch 🙂 All together, i’ve got all the spices of Mulling Spices covered! At this point, i’ll probably need to put a bit more coconut oil in, because i’ve added a LOT of dry stuff and the cake may need a bit more liquid to balance out.

When it’s ready and cooled, i’ll use a tea strainer to sift a blend of powdered sugar and cinnamon on top, so that it looks like snow. Oooh, i think i’ll put some star-shaped cut-outs on the cake first, so that it ends up with stars surrounded by the “snow”.

I hope this gives you some fun ideas to be festive with!

If you’re looking for more herbal gift ideas, we’ve got them for you! You can check out the ​2025 Herbal Gift Guide​ if you want to buy herbal-themed gifts, and you can poke through ​the Herbal Activity Calenda​r for the whole month of December to find lots of DIY recipes! Both are free resources so go grab them, and share with your friends!