The Drinks of the German Christmas Market

Walk into a German Christmas market on a cold December evening and the first thing you notice, before the gingerbread and the woodsmoke, is the smell of warm wine and spice drifting from the drink stalls. The Weihnachtsmarkt is a feast for the senses, but it is also, unapologetically, a drinking occasion. For centuries these markets have given people a reason to stand outside in the cold, mug in hand, and the drinks they cradle are as much a part of the tradition as the wooden huts and the fairy lights.

This guide covers what is actually poured, how the ordering works, and how to make the same drinks at home.

Glühwein, the beating heart

The drink that defines the market is Glühwein, the German rendering of mulled wine. Red wine is warmed with cinnamon, clove, star anise and citrus, sweetened just enough and served steaming in a ceramic mug.

The name comes from glühender Wein, glowing wine, a reference to the glowing irons once used to heat it. What arrives in your hand is deliberately unsubtle: sweeter than you would make at home, because market glühwein is built on inexpensive wine and the sugar is doing real work.

A few variations turn up at almost every market. Weisser Glühwein, the white version, is lighter and less tannic, and has been gaining ground for years. Our mulled white wine recipe is the same idea done properly, with honey, ginger and cardamom instead of sugar and clove. Glühwein mit Schuss adds a shot of rum or amaretto for a euro or two more.

Feuerzangenbowle, theatre in a glass

If glühwein is the everyday drink of the market, Feuerzangenbowle is its grand performance.

A cone of sugar, the Zuckerhut, is soaked in overproof rum, suspended on a metal tong over a bowl of mulled wine, and set alight. As it burns, caramelised sugar drips flaming into the wine below, perfuming and sweetening it. The spectacle draws a crowd every time, and the resulting drink is richer and headier than ordinary glühwein.

The name lives on in German popular culture through a much-loved 1944 film of the same name, still screened in university towns every December, which only deepens its festive associations. It is worth making once at home for the theatre alone, though it deserves respect: you are setting fire to high-proof spirit over an open bowl.

Beyond the wine

The market’s drinks list runs deeper than wine, and the stalls that are not selling glühwein are often the more interesting ones.

Glühbier

Warm spiced beer, made with dark beer or bock and warmed with honey, cinnamon, clove and orange. Maltier and less sweet than mulled wine, and enjoying a quiet revival among people who find glühwein cloying by the third mug. Glühbier

Eierpunsch

A warm egg-based punch, custardy and rich, somewhere between eggnog and a hot cocktail. It is the drink for the coldest evenings and the one most likely to replace pudding. Our advocaat recipe covers the same egg-and-brandy territory in a smaller glass.

Kinderpunsch

The alcohol-free option, and one that German markets take genuinely seriously. A spiced fruit punch with all the warmth and aroma of glühwein and none of the alcohol, served in the same mug so nobody is visibly excluded from the ritual. Warm cranberry punch and spiced apple and orange warmer are the closest recipes here.

Heisse Schokolade mit Schuss

Hot chocolate with a shot, usually rum or amaretto. Not traditional in the way glühwein is, but present at every market and the reliable choice for anyone who has had enough spice. Our spiked hot chocolate is the same drink made properly with real chocolate.

How the ordering actually works

Ordering at a market is its own small etiquette, and it catches out first-time visitors.

You queue at the stall and pay for the drink plus a Pfand, a deposit of usually two to five euros, on the mug. You receive a ceramic mug, not a paper cup. When you have finished, you return the mug to any stall of the same market and reclaim the deposit, or you keep the mug and forfeit it.

Keeping it is common and expected. Each market, and often each town, prints its own design with the year on it, and collecting them has become a quiet pleasure of the season. Nuremberg, Dresden and Cologne mugs are the ones people actually seek out.

The drink itself is meant to be nursed rather than rushed. Its real job is to keep you warm enough to linger among the stalls, which is precisely what the stallholders want.

Regional differences worth knowing

Not every market pours the same thing.

• Nuremberg, the most famous of them all, is conservative: glühwein, Feuerzangenbowle, and Nuremberg bratwurst alongside.
• Dresden, home of the Striezelmarkt and of Stollen, leans towards eierpunsch and richer serves.
• Cologne and the Rhineland have more glühbier, unsurprisingly given the beer culture.
• Bavaria and the alpine south shade into alpine drinking: stronger punches, more rum, and jägertee once you are high enough.

A living tradition

The Weihnachtsmarkt has been a fixture of German winter since the late Middle Ages, and its drinks have evolved with each generation while keeping their essential character: warm, spiced and sociable.

Newer warmers occasionally appear among the classics, and you may well spot a spiced apple-and-gin serve being poured alongside the glühwein at a modern stall. But the core remains gloriously unchanged. To hold a mug of glühwein under the lights, surrounded by chatter and the scent of roasting almonds, is to taste winter exactly as Germany intends it.

To make the whole set at home, the mulled drinks collection has every recipe mentioned here, and our guide to glühwein alternatives covers what to pour when the third mug of red is one too many.