Feuerzangenbowle - the legendary punch at Christmas and New Year's Eve
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Feuerzangenbowle is a punch based on red wine. Despite the name, the drink is not a 'bowle'. 'Bowle" is a German denomination for a beverage mixed with alcohol and fruit, which is to be drunk cold. Punch ('Punsch' in German) is a hot beverage mixed with alcohol and spices and/or fruit.
Dry red wine is heated in a vessel with cloves, cinnamon sticks, lemon and orange peel. A sugar loaf is placed on the fire tongs and placed over the vessel. Brown rum is drizzled onto the sugar loaf until the sugar loaf is completely soaked and then lit. The sugar melts, caramelises and drips into the red wine. Approximately 0.35 litres of rum are used for every two to three litres of red wine.
A Feuerzangenbowle is mainly drunk in winter, often during Advent or on New Year's Eve. The punch is also offered ready to drink at Christmas markets at this time of year.
The punch became famous through the 1944 film 'Die Feuerzangenbowle' with popular German actor Heinz Rühmann, a film adaptation of the 1933 novel by Heinrich Spoerl. This classic film is still frequently shown on German television during the Christmas season.
At the beginning of the film, several elderly gentlemen are drinking Feuerzangenbowle and are reminiscing about their schooldays and pranks committed there. Only the writer Dr. Johannes Pfeiffer cannot join in, as he was taught by a private tutor. Pfeiffer is considerably younger than the other men, so that, with a few changes, his outer appearance can be brought up to the required age of a high school graduate. And so he is now supposed to repeat at least the completion of his school education at a real school. This crazy idea is then put into practice...
