You know what Christmas season in Denmark means - loads of awesome Christmas foods, walks through the beautifully illuminated and decorated Tivoli gardens, and of course countless glasses of gløgg.
Gløgg is a mulled wine with Christmas spices, raisins, and chopped almonds. The red variety is most common, although white gløgg seems to become increasingly popular, and often, it is spiked with liquor. Last week, I tried what is no doubt the fanciest gløgg in all of Copenhagen at beautiful landmark Hotel d’Angleterre.
Hotel d’Angleterre is the grande dame of hotels in Copenhagen - a true temple of luxury. Normally not quite the place I would frequent very often (sigh!), but once in a while, you just have to indulge and splurge a little bit! The hotel’s signature white facade is decorated for Christmas every year, and the illumination is a spectacle that causes massive traffic chaos at Kongens Nytorv!
Last year’s scene was with nutcrackers, and this year, the hotel facade plays host to these adorable polar bears having a fancy party.
Inside, the decorations are just as pretty.
We found our table in the lovely bar area on the ground floor, looking out on the bustling Kongens Nytorv square, where there’s a little Christmas market going on, and ordered our first glass of the liquid gold (at least that’s what I think it was, at DKK 135 a glass, it better be!).
I opted for the white gløgg, which is made with white wine, white port wine, apple juice, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla, honey, and akvavit. Instead of the classic raisins, the gløgg contained dried apricots.
We also got some Christmas cookies and other baked snacks, served on a beautiful silver étagère.
There were snebolde (“snow balls”, marcipan coated in shredded coconut), brunkager (“brown cookies”, traditional Christmas cookies with cinnamon, ginger, and pistachios), vaniljekranse (“vanilla crowns”, vanilla butter cookies), and the politically incorrectly named jødekager (“jew cookies”, shortcrust cookies topped with brown sugar, cinnamon, and almonds).
We also nibbled on klejner, small, deep fried cookies served with castor sugar, and other delicacies.
Don’t mind if I do!
Of course, I couldn’t leave without trying the classic, red gløgg as well - after all, how often will I be sipping delicious, steaming, sweet wine in the most luxurious hotel in all of Copenhagen?
The red was amazing as well, but I think I favored the white by the slightest of margins.
We finished up what was left of the nibbles…
… before wrapping ourselves and heading back out into the wintery cold - secretly wishing I was a royal or somehow otherwise privileged enough to spend much more time in such exquisite places!
Hotel d’Angleterre serves their special gløgg from around mid-November until Christmas. Tables can be booked every day from 15:30-17:30.
Hotel d’Angleterre, Kongens Nytorv 34, Copenhagen - dangleterre.com
I attended an event with Yelp Copenhagen, and we received a special discount on the gløgg and cookies.
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