[GD checked – ok]
It’s early December, and you’re getting into the festive mood. Christmas decorations have sprouted everywhere, you’ve been enjoying seeing families of strangers milling around the shops in a wholesome sort of way – and you’re at a Christmas market (as we’ll be doing this year and the next), browsing the stalls in search of something delicious.
Also, your feet are cold. It’s rapidly becoming the kind of night that rimes everything in ice, turns the ground crunchy, and drags the heat out of your body at a rate you can feel as a dull ache. You thrust your gloved hands deeper into your pockets. Yes, “delicious” would be really great, but what’s really important right now is getting warmer – or at least staying no colder than this.
It’s a Christmas market in Europe, so you’re being tugged this way and that by delicious smells. Maybe it’s a little too early for a plate of currywurst, but – how about a steaming cup of mulled wine? Will that warm you up?
Interesting question – with an even more interesting answer!
Firstly, let’s make one thing clear: yes, you absolutely should have a mulled wine. Also known as spiced wine, it’s a delicious mix of red or white wine and spices, slowly cooked and served hot at this time of year throughout many European countries. Germany and its neighbours might call it Glühwein; the Swedes call it Glögg. Everyone loves it, and if you like wine, you’ll love it too.
The Classical era Romans also loved it, using it to keep their body’s inner fires stoked during the winter, and during the middle ages, Europeans improved on the recipe by adding spices and herbs to try to promote health and prevent sickness. Its enduring popularity has inspired mulled wine cakes, muffins, baked fruit desserts (christmas compote) and various experimental slow-cooked versions.
There is also no doubt that it’ll make you feel warmer. A good reason to have mulled wine on a bitterly cold day is to be able to hold the cup in your hands, feeling the heat of it bring feeling back to your deadened fingers. Then there’s the fiery glow it will leave you with as you chug it back, setting your throat and stomach temporarily alight as those spices (cloves, star anise, cardamom) kick in…
But what is this actually doing to you, in a medically measurable sense – and is it really helping you stay warm for the rest of the night?
The core temperature of your body right now is around 37°C (98.6°F). You can be sure of this because you’re feeling comfortable, you’re able to think, and you’re conscious. Were you to stray just a few degrees either side of this mark you’d quickly feel it, either with a sweaty fever or a fit of uncontrollable shivering violent enough to make your teeth clack like castanets.
This is a thing to give praise for! It is truly marvellous how our bodies self-regulate like this. (Note: “core temperature” is a quite different thing to “surface temperature”, which is why you’re able to be outside in temperatures below freezing for quite some time.)
But you are also – and I’m sorry I can’t put this any more politely – a bag of hot liquid. That’s essentially what humans are, being around 60% water. So if you’re trying to warm yourself up, you’re proposing to raise the temperature of a significant proportion of the roughly 35 to 45 litres of water in your body. This requires a lot of energy.
A hot glass of wine (or anything else) may feel warming, but in the grand scheme of things, your drink is barely going to move the needle here. Consider: if it’s cool enough to go down your throat, it’s no hotter than 70°C (160°F), and you’re probably sipping it or even blowing on the surface of it first, which will increase the rate it’s cooling down. That’s only a very small amount of heat – in a very small amount of liquid – against the overall temperature of your entire body. You’re like Sisyphus trying to push his boulder up that hill: at some point, that boulder is definitely rolling all the way back to where it first started.
Consequently, any temperature boost you get from the heat of the wine isn’t going to last very long. You might get a bit of a glow on for the next quarter of an hour or twenty minutes – but no longer. At the same time, the alcohol is going to dilate the blood vessels on your skin and in your fingers, toes, the tips of your ears and the end of your nose. This will divert your blood away from your vitals, which will lower your core temperature. (This is why it’s such a bad idea to drink a lot of alcohol when you’re in extremely cold surroundings.)
So – no. That mulled wine, however delicious, really is not your best bet for staying warm all evening. To keep your inner fires stoked, you need to rely on what reliably warms your body every day for the whole of your life: the chemical stores you create within you using the food that you eat. Again – take a moment to thank your body, because it’s amazing at turning food into heat (a process called thermogenesis). Your only job is to keep it supplied with the right fuel – and in cold weather, that means carbohydrates, fats and maybe a little caffeine (which can accelerate heat production in a number of ways).
Rejoice! I just gave you an excellent reason to stuff yourself with delicious fatty sugary things from all the market stalls around you – as long as you also keep topped up with enough water to avoid dehydration, because that’s what your body needs to be able to work at 100% fuel-burning capacity…
Plate of currywurst to start?
*****
In a few weeks, Wheel & Anchor will be embarking on a magical 13-night Christmas Markets Tour across Europe, starting in Frankfurt’s Römerplatz and ending in Vienna. This year’s trip is already sold out – so secure your place early for the 2025 version before all the places are taken! All the details are here.