Winter Cocktails: 'Tis the Season
As the song goes, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. ‘Tis the season for winter cocktails around the fire pit.
Learn how to make these four classics (two warm, two chilled) from veteran bartender Leandro DiMonriva, aka The Educated Barfly. His high-quality video craft cocktail tutorials are also a fascinating education in cocktail history.
Hot Buttered Rum
Adding butter to alcoholic drinks started in the days of Henry VIII when Dr. Andrew Boorde recommended buttered ale as a remedy for hoarseness. Drink to your health with this cold-weather classic that became a staple in New England in the colonial days.
INGREDIENTS: rum (2 oz), spiced syrup (.5 oz), 1 spoon of spiced butter batch (watch for the recipe), hot water (4-5 oz)
Hot Buttered Rum, it's like Liquid Christmas! >
Hot Toddy from 1781
The origins of the winter drink are as foggy as a Scottish morn, but one theory is a reference to “Todian Spring,” a water source in Edinburgh, found in a poem published in 1781. If you’re visiting New Orleans this Christmas season, pit stop at The Napoleon House for a fine version of this classic.
INGREDIENTS: bourbon (1.75 oz), fresh lemon juice (.5 oz), honey (.5 oz), hot water (2 oz), lemon wedge garnish
Warding Off Jack Frost With The Hot Toddy from 1781 >
Cosmopolitan
1934 A rosy-colored cocktail conjures the Christmas spirits. Unlike the Cosmopolitan made famous in “Sex and the City,” this is a drier version, made with gin instead of vodka, that dates back to 1934.
INGREDIENTS: gin (2 oz), fresh lemon juice (.75 oz), fresh raspberry syrup (.75 oz)
Old-Fashioned
According to most sources, this brown-liquor favorite was invented at the Pendennis Club in Louisville in 1881 when patrons supposedly asked for a cocktail “made the old-fashioned way.” Hailing from The Ville, I second this.
INGREDIENTS: rye or your preferred whiskey (2 oz), 1 sugar cube, 4 dashes Angostura Bitters, dash soda
The Perfect Old-Fashioned >
A version of this article originally appeared in the November 2020 issue of Leader’s Edge Magazine.