Cocktail of the week: Hot Toddy
With winter in full swing, and your fluffy pyjamas becoming more of a solid outfit choice in the evenings, there's only one hot drink that'll warm your cockles during the dark nights. Fruity, sweet, and alcoholic; it’s time to cosy up with a Hot Toddy.
Hot toddies are usually made with tea, typically a plain old black tea, but they’re also great with green tea or jasmine for those who prefer something a little more fragrant. Unlike mulled wine, or warm cider, hot toddies are light and refreshing rather than overwhelmingly sweet. The combination of whisky, honey, lemon, cinnamon and cloves really packs a punch and is perfect not only for sipping on in your PJ's, but for entertaining guests this winter.
Hot toddies were also used widely in the mid-19th century to help cure the common cold. You would fix yourself a steaming mug of hot water, add honey, herbs, spices and liqueur such as whiskey, rum, or brandy and let the healing begin. Seriously, is there anything this drink can't do?
What you'll need:
50ml whisky
3 tsp honey, or to taste
1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half
1 lemon, half juiced and half sliced
2 cloves
How to prepare:
- In a teapot or saucepan, bring the water to a simmer. Pour the hot water into a mug
- Add the whiskey, the teaspoons honey and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Stir until the honey has disappeared into the hot water. Taste, and add 1 teaspoon honey for more sweetness, and/or 1 teaspoon more lemon juice for more zing.
- Garnish with a lemon round (studded with cloves) and cinnamon stick
Are you feeling festive yet? We can't wait to cosy up with a Hot Toddy this winter!
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Recipe for the best mulled wine; nailed.
With the big day literally around the corner, we’re already thinking about all the festive flavours that Christmas will be bringing us. From mince pies, to pigs in blankets, there really is something about those warming ingredients during winter time that makes us all feel a little bit fuzzy - right?
Mulled wine, or - Christmas in a glass - as we like to call it, can be a bit of a marmite situation. Some people love the winter spice overload, and others - not so keen. However, below we’ve sourced a recipe that even the biggest of scrooge's will love this winter.
Ingredients;
- 2 clementines
- 1 lemon
- 1 lime
- 200 g caster sugar
- 6 whole cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 fresh bay leaves
- 1 whole nutmeg , for grating
- 1 vanilla pod
- 2 bottles Chianti or other Italian red wine
- 2 star anise
Method;
- Peel large sections of peel from the clementines, lemon and lime.
- Put the sugar in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the pieces of peel and squeeze in the clementine juice.
- Add the cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and about 10 to 12 gratings of nutmeg. Halve the vanilla pod lengthways and add to the pan, then stir in just enough red wine to cover the sugar.
- Let this simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved into the red wine, then bring to the boil. Keep on a rolling boil for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until you’ve got a beautiful thick syrup. The reason I’m doing this first is to create a wonderful flavour base by really getting the sugar and spices to infuse and blend well with the wine. It’s important to make a syrup base first because it needs to be quite hot, and if you do this with both bottles of wine in there you’ll burn off the alcohol.
- When your syrup is ready, turn the heat down to low and add your star anise and the rest of the wine. Gently heat the wine and after around 5 minutes, when it’s warm and delicious, ladle it into heatproof glasses and serve.
So there we have it; Christmas in a glass, and one of the ultimate ways to stay cosy this winter - enjoy!
Note; if you’re planning on hiring a pop up bar in the new year, why not let us bring the party to you? At Pop-Up Bar Hire, we can help stock, organize, and run your bar so that you can sit back and enjoy the party. Contact us here for more information.
Vegan Wines & Where To Find Them
In the spirit of Veganuary, we're on the hunt for vegan wines... Now, you may be surprised. Wine comes from grapes, how can it not be vegan? We had exactly the same thought here at Pop Up Bar Hire, but after some extensive research we were surprised to see that wine contains numerous animal derived products, albeit we were pleasantly surprised to see that vegan wines are on the rise! Keep reading to discover how to find the latest vegan wines & the best dishes to pair them with.