Hot Toddy Tonight
Some recipes to keep the home fires burning
Hot Port Sangaree
(developed by Audrey Saunders)
• 3 oz. ruby port
• ½ oz. pomegranate syrup
• ¾ oz. simple syrup
• ¼ oz. Cointreau
• ¼ oz. lemon juice
• 1 dash Angostura Bitters
• 2 dashes Regans’ Orange Bitters
Add one lemon twist to this mix and bring to
a simmer. Strain, pour into a London Dock
(footed glass mug with a handle), and gar-
nish with another fresh lemon twist.
Martell Hot Toddy
Build preheated (add ingredients in glass
before pouring in hot water):
• ½ tsp. sugar
• ½ oz. fresh lemon juice
• 2 oz. Martell VS Cognac
Fill rocks glass with hot water and add a
lemon twist and nutmeg.
form—arrack—as part of their five-ingredient “punch” recipe: a distilled
spirit, water, citrus, sugar and spice. The
name for punch probably comes from the
Hindi word “panch,” which means five.
The longer a person looks at the history of alcohol, the fuzzier the picture gets.
But apparently the water-of-life-loving
Scottish borrowed the punch recipe and
decided to heat things up. Thus was born
the hot toddy we know today.
Hot toddies aren’t just a sort of liquid blanket, but continue to be a folk
remedy for the common cold and flu.
Health providers warn against drinking
alcohol when you’re sick, but the seemingly curative, relaxing power of a hot
toddy is still popular with patients who
want to recover quickly—or at least in
more comfort. In Japan they have a drink
for sick people that translates into “egg
sake,” where a raw egg is mixed into hot
sake, eaten with chopsticks and then the
leftovers are gulped down.
Red, Hot and Blue
Solomon says that Colonial-era Americans had their own ale-based version of
this, called a “flip” or ale posset, which
was quickly heated by ramming a hot
poker into the mix.
An early American drink that’s probably the hottest toddy ever invented has
been lost to history and fire codes. The
blue blazer was a whiskey punch that
was ignited and poured back and forth
between two silver chalices to produce a
long blue flame. Solomon says he once saw
uber-mixologist Dale DeGroff, of Rainbow
Room fame, make a blue blazer.
“I’ve used Dale’s mugs myself—it’s
not an easy drink to make because it’s so
hot. You’ve really got to be quite set up,
and you need to do it in a very controlled
environment,” Solomon says.
A modern, but less romantically
named version of the blue blazer survives
as “flames over Jersey.” A flaming ladle
of 151-proof rum is poured over a concoction of applejack (an apple-based spirit
that has long figured in the history of
New Jersey), apple slices, nutmeg and
cinnamon that’s been heated in a pan.
“The tradition of enjoying hot toddies
with family and friends has this glorious six-week revival every year, and the
limited duration makes it special,” says
Katz. “What’s great is that they’re simple
to make—the ingredients are probably already lying around. And with the
availability now of premium spirits at a
good price, it’s easier than ever to craft a
memorable hot toddy.”
