Mix everything but the vodka in a large stainless steel pot and heat until sugar has melted, but keep heat low so alcohol doesn’t evaporate. Bring it to about 160°, below boiling. Turn off the heat and leave for about a week.

Taste! Add sugar or increase the amount of spices; heat up again then leave for a couple more days.

Before bottling, remove the cheesecloth bag of spices and add 2 cups of vodka. Pour finished glogg into bottles, perhaps the emptied liquor bottles saved from making the punch.

Serve warm with almonds and raisins and enjoy!

This recipe comes from Viveka Kjellgren, a friend of a friend, a Swedish woman who moved with her husband to Connecticut 14 years ago. She told me by email, “In Sweden when I was young, the tradition was that when it was ‘window-shopping Sunday,’ the first Sunday of Advent, when the stores changed their displays to holiday decorations, you went downtown to look at them and afterwards went to a friend’s for glogg in order to warm up.

“Our first year in the States, we invited our new neighbors to have some glogg, thinking nobody would really like it. We were wrong! They loved it. We serve it from two-ounce glass glogg mugs, about the size of espresso cups, because it has sugar and alcohol and is warm and goes straight into your blood! Now our Annual Glogg Party is a huge success, to which we invite about 200 people.”

[Note: Viveka’s original recipe specified jug burgundy and “the cheapest you can find” liquors. Perhaps the heat and spices overwhelm any flavor nuances, but we’ll let you choose your shelf.]