Christmas Blends

Known as mulled wine in English, Glühwein is winter magic in a glass; warming hands and souls during Germany's coldest months. Our Glühwein Gewürz is made with traditional mulling spices including wild hibiscus for ruby colour, cinnamon and clove for warmth, with star anise and orange peel for fragrance. Perfect for mulled wine, stewed winter fruit, as well as grown-up and kids' punch. First time making Glühwein? Try our Glühwein Spice Kit for everything you need in one go.

Flavour Notes: Warmly spiced, citrus-edged, lightly floral

Cuisine: German

Heat Level: 0/5

Chocolate Spice uses Double Dutch cocoa and fragrant winter spices of ginger, clove and nutmeg to give warmth to baked goods, cookies and hot chocolate. Simply substitute Chocolate Spice for some of the cocoa in any chocolate-flavoured recipe. It's delicious when used to spice up chocolate cakes, cream fillings or added to your morning coffee for a spiced mocha.

Flavour Notes: Warmly spiced, rich, fragrant

Cuisine: Dutch

Heat Level: 0/5

No fresh garlic on hand? No problem! Our Garlic Lovers' Spice can be used as a quick substitute for any recipe calling for garlic. A carbohydrate's best friend, use it with bread, pasta and potatoes. Combine soft butter and Garlic Lovers' Spice for an easy garlic butter, to be spread on a sliced baguette for the perfect garlic bread. For a garlicky mashed potato, add 1 tsp when mashing. This will quickly become a pantry staple, earning its place beside the salt and pepper!

Flavour Notes: Garlicky, savoury, slightly herbaceous

Cuisine: European

Heat Level: 0/5

This fragrant French-style seasoning blends lavender with aniseed, fennel and coriander for a floral, herbaceous note, rounded out with pepper, chilli, garlic and ginger for gentle warmth.

Our Vanilla Bean Sugar uses only the fine seeds from Madagascan vanilla, which are hand-stripped out of each pod. Vanilla bean is the dried and cured seed pod of a tropical South American climbing orchid and it takes up to three months to get market ready.

This sugar also pairs well with pork and, of course, with anything containing chocolate. Great for baking and compotes, simply use in place of normal sugar.

Flavour Notes: Sweet, fragrant, floral

Cuisine: Madagascan

Heat Level: 0/5

Italian black summer truffles are combined with sea salt to create a blend that turns the most simple dish into a deliciously complex medley of flavours. While all truffle varieties work well with any cooked egg or mushroom dishes, black truffle is earthy and chocolatey, making it ideal for classic sauces, roast chicken, steak, potatoes, winter vegetables or hot buttered popcorn. So precious are the truffles, that Italian truffle harvesters protect their groves by using long winding paths at night or in the early morning fog to confuse potential followers.

Flavour Notes: Earthy, chocolatey, deeply savoury, rich

Cuisine: Italian

Heat Level: 0/5

Open a jar of our Cinnamon and once you smell the difference, you’ll realise that not all cinnamon is the same.
Ceylon cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum - literally 'true cinnamon') is grown in Sri Lanka and has a sweeter, more floral and delicate character than anything you've likely used before. Our A Grade is the finest tier available, with a high essential oil content and an exceptional fragrance straight from the jar.
Subtly sweet and woody, cinnamon imparts a delicate warmth that melds and harmonises other flavours. It is beautiful used in baking, porridge and warm drinks, or added to savoury Moroccan and Indian dishes such as tagines and curries for a subtle, aromatic sweetness.

Cassia - also known as Dutch cinnamon or baker's cinnamon - is bolder than true cinnamon. Cassia's sweet and spicy fragrance and flavour is more intense than that of cinnamon. Its slight bitterness makes it distinctly different from cinnamon and gives its sweetness depth. Cassia is delicious in more robust sweet dishes such as fruit cakes, strudels, compotes and crumbles. It is often used in curries and stews for a balancing sweetness.

Until the mid-19th century, the Banda Islands were the world's only source of nutmeg and mace, harvested from the nutmeg tree. This nutmeg, ground from the highest grade of fruit, boasts strong aroma and flavour. Its resinous, sweet, heady fragrance adds depth and character to cakes, pies and all manner of baked goods. It also complements savoury cheese and cream dishes, and vegetables such as spinach, carrot and pumpkin.

Stick your nose into a sack of cloves and you will understand why ancient mariners claimed to smell the approach of the clove islands while still far out to sea. A terrific and much-used pungent addition to Christmas ham and baked goods, stewed and pickled fruit and vegetables, cakes, pastries and biscuits, German Glühwein (also known as mulled wine), and many North African spice blends. Also known as: Nelke, ting-hiang.

With a more rounded flavour than its zesty, fresh sibling, dried orange peel has a beautiful, bitter sweetness that gives depth and fragrance without overpowering. Dried orange peel matches well with duck and game meats, and any dish complemented by stewed fruit. It is also used in the Japanese sprinkle, Shichimi Togarashi.

The signature spice of the famous chai tea, cardamom is sweet and aromatic with camphoric tones. This bright, complex flavour brings sophistication to cakes, biscuits, puddings and scrolls; curries and stews; rice dishes; stewed and preserved fruits; red meats and milky beverages. This whole pod is picked while still immature, ideal for infusing whole into simmering curries and rice, or splitting open to release the seeds and their aromatic oils.

Not to be confused with mixed spice, allspice is so named for its exquisitely combinative tones of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg. Allspice is an ingredient in mixed spice as well as sweet baked goods; pickles, relishes and preserves; gravies and marinades; and winter drinks. The deep, fruity warmth of these earth-coloured berries complements red meats, seafood and root vegetables. Native to the West Indies and Central America, allspice, also known as pimento, is a key ingredient in Caribbean recipes such as Jamaican jerk seasoning. Also known as: Pimento, Jamaica pepper, Myrtle pepper

Juniper berry is in fact not a true berry but a cone. Its outer layers do not contain much flavour, so grinding or crushing maximises the release of its fresh green citrus flavours. Juniper imparts a sharp taste to meat dishes, especially wild birds and game meats.

Bearing the heady fragrance of liquorice, star anise is used in the East as aniseed is in the West. It is one of the ingredients in Chinese five spice, and Chinese stocks and soups very often contain star anise, as do many other traditional Chinese dishes. With a deeper perfume and sweetness than fennel or aniseed, the flavour of star anise pairs exceptionally well with pork and duck. In Europe, star anise is added to fruit compotes and jams, as well as anisette liqueurs.

This tuberous rhizome has been travelling across oceans since Chinese navigators began growing it in planter boxes onboard their vessels. Versatile and well represented in many cuisines, ginger in its powdered form can be added to stir-fry dishes, noodles and rice, sauces and marinades.