Easy hot apple toddy

There are times when alcohol isn't sufficiently warming on its own, when the very words ‘on ice' are enough to have you considering a hot chocolate instead of a cocktail. Joanne Gibson finds reprieve from the winter months in a hot toddy.

You just don't come across hot toddies very often in sunny South Africa, not even during the Cape's winter deluge. Which seems rather a shame.

Warm alcoholic beverages have their origins in Europe where wines and ciders were mulled with sugar and spices to take the chill off cold winter days. In really miserable climes, of course, they went straight for the hard stuff - a traditional Scottish recipe calls for a shot of whisky mixed with boiling water, a spoonful of honey, a slice of lemon, two cloves and a cinnamon stick. Good for soothing a sore throat and packed with vitamin C too.

Charles Dickens certainly belonged to the hot-toddy school of medicine: "Take a glass of scalding rum and butter before you get into bed," says Bounderby to Mrs Sparsit in Hard Times. In America the terms ‘hot buttered rum' and ‘hot toddy' can apparently be used interchangeably, though the drink combining dark rum with butter, sugar, spices and hot water or cider is associated with holidays rather than colds and flu. The hot toddy is even more popular over there than Glühwein.

Evocative of Christmas markets and Austrian skiing holidays, Glühwein is more or less the same thing as mulled wine in Britain, vin chaud in France and svarené víno in the Czech Republic (though that last one literally translates as ‘boiled wine', which would be a mistake - all that lovely alcohol evaporating away...).

While every region, indeed every village, has its own recipe, the basic ingredients are red wine, sugar, spices (from cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to vanilla and even black pepper) and perhaps some orange or lemon. The amounts vary, but this tip from the mulled wine recipe in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management is as valid as it was in 1869: "It is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful."

Describing Glühwein as a warm version of sangria doesn't really do justice to the drink that brings relief to the hands that hold it and warmth to the cockles of your heart. An optional extra is to add a shot of rum or liqueur - Glühwein mit Schuss - which will definitely warm those cockles (and your wife's cockles too, as my German Opa used to say). Glögg is the Scandinavian equivalent of Glühwein, usually fortified with a shot of vodka or akvavit and some raisins and blanched almonds sprinkled into the cup for eating with a spoon afterwards.

The wine should be full-bodied, fruity and inexpensive - though it does need to be drinkable - and white or sweet wines are also occasionally used. Mulled apple cider is equally delicious, said to be similar to Wassail, the hot, spiced punch that was consumed during the pagan tradition of singing to trees in apple orchards to scare away evil spirits and ensure a good harvest. The name itself is a contraction of the Middle English phrase woes hoeil, meaning ‘be healthy'.
Prevention is better than cure, after all, and if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then it might as well be taken in toddy form!

Easy hot apple toddy
4 T whisky or apple brandy (Calvados)
1 t honey
hot apple cider (or cloudy apple juice)
1 t sugar
cinnamon stick

Heat up the apple cider (being careful not to let it boil). Coat the bottom of a heatproof glass with honey. Pour in the whisky or apple brandy, then top up with the hot apple cider. Stir in the sugar (adding more if you have a sweet tooth) and garnish with a cinnamon stick. For some extra vitamin C, squeeze in a wedge of lemon too.