As the nights draw in, try some of my top wintry drinks to keep you warm and toasty.
1) Morocco ale – spiced ginger-cakey winter warmer revived by Daleside breweries
2) Irish Coffee – one part whiskey to four parts hot coffee and a teaspoon of sugar in an Irish-coffee glass (with a handle) and topped up with a layer of thick cream poured over the back of a spoon. Sod ’em and begorrah – I’ll have two!
3) Eggnog – one egg to two parts each of light rum and brandy, three of single cream and simple syrup to taste, shaken with ice, strained into a highball glass and finished with a sprinkle of nutmeg. Omitting the cream makes it an Egg Flip. Just say ‘nog’ to eggnog.
4) Mulled wine (aka Glühwein in Germany) – the mistake people make is to ignore the fact that if you mull crap wine, you get crap mulled wine. For each bottle of big, fruity red you pour in to a large pan and heat at the lowest possible setting, add: one star anise, a bit of cinnamon, a cup of seriously strong Earl Grey tea, a small cup of dark rum, a heaped tablespoon of demerara sugar, a couple of peeled mandarins, clementines or satsumas or an orange studded with a few cloves – the peel itself is too bitter. The other mistake is overheating, which is a disaster because alcohol boils at 78ºC/173ºF and it will all have disappeared long before the wine itself has boiled. The temperature should be around 55–60ºC/130–140ºF at which point you’ll see nothing more dramatic than a few elegant wisps of steam coming off the pan as you ladle it into sturdy heat-proof glasses.
5) Grog – five parts dark rum to two parts lemon juice stirred with boiling water to taste. Serve in a rocks glass with a clove, a piece of cinnamon and one lump of sugar. What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
6) Artillery Punch – into a large bowl mix ten parts each of bourbon, red wine and strong black tea; five parts each dark rum and orange juice; two parts each apricot brandy and gin; one part each lemon juice and lime juice and chill before adding ice and slices of lemon and lime. Serve (but don’t try this at home) by gathering your guests around the bowl and dropping a cannonball into the mix from a decent height.
7) Sloe gin – I’ve never understood why it has this naughty image, as exemplified by my mum – hello, Mum! – who made it in her youth and reminisces about it with a bit of a nudge and a wink, like they do, because, surely, if a person were going to be naughty with a bottle of gin they wouldn’t put sloes in it and bury it in the ground for six weeks, would they? They’d neck it. Originating in the Basque Country, but now popular throughout Spain, pacharán – patxarán to the picky Vascos – is a strongly addictive version using sweet anis instead of gin.
8) Brandy Alexander – equal parts brandy, dark crème de cacao and fresh cream shaken with ice; strain into a cocktail glass and sprinkle with ground nutmeg.
9) Buck’s Fizz (aka Mimosa) – build, if you must, two parts chilled fresh orange juice and one of Champagne in a flute and thereby diminish both ingredients. Revivify the zombie by simple means of the addition of one part vodka to four of the mix and you have Agua de Valencia. The disingenuousness of the name greatly enhances the frisson of naughtiness surrounding the consumption of the typical jugful of it. Anybody fortunate enough to have witnessed a traditional Valenciano firework fight will have pondered to what extent the intake of ‘Agua’ will have been influential upon the conduct of the ‘fuegos’ and vice versa.
10) Champagne Cocktail – build a small lump of sugar, two dashes of bitters, one part brandy and nine parts chilled champagne in a flute glass, garnish with a maraschino cherry, a twist of orange and an unshakeable sense of superiority.
2) Irish Coffee – one part whiskey to four parts hot coffee and a teaspoon of sugar in an Irish-coffee glass (with a handle) and topped up with a layer of thick cream poured over the back of a spoon. Sod ’em and begorrah – I’ll have two!3) Eggnog – one egg to two parts each of light rum and brandy, three of single cream and simple syrup to taste, shaken with ice, strained into a highball glass and finished with a sprinkle of nutmeg. Omitting the cream makes it an Egg Flip. Just say ‘nog’ to eggnog.
4) Mulled wine (aka Glühwein in Germany) – the mistake people make is to ignore the fact that if you mull crap wine, you get crap mulled wine. For each bottle of big, fruity red you pour in to a large pan and heat at the lowest possible setting, add: one star anise, a bit of cinnamon, a cup of seriously strong Earl Grey tea, a small cup of dark rum, a heaped tablespoon of demerara sugar, a couple of peeled mandarins, clementines or satsumas or an orange studded with a few cloves – the peel itself is too bitter. The other mistake is overheating, which is a disaster because alcohol boils at 78ºC/173ºF and it will all have disappeared long before the wine itself has boiled. The temperature should be around 55–60ºC/130–140ºF at which point you’ll see nothing more dramatic than a few elegant wisps of steam coming off the pan as you ladle it into sturdy heat-proof glasses.
5) Grog – five parts dark rum to two parts lemon juice stirred with boiling water to taste. Serve in a rocks glass with a clove, a piece of cinnamon and one lump of sugar. What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
6) Artillery Punch – into a large bowl mix ten parts each of bourbon, red wine and strong black tea; five parts each dark rum and orange juice; two parts each apricot brandy and gin; one part each lemon juice and lime juice and chill before adding ice and slices of lemon and lime. Serve (but don’t try this at home) by gathering your guests around the bowl and dropping a cannonball into the mix from a decent height.
7) Sloe gin – I’ve never understood why it has this naughty image, as exemplified by my mum – hello, Mum! – who made it in her youth and reminisces about it with a bit of a nudge and a wink, like they do, because, surely, if a person were going to be naughty with a bottle of gin they wouldn’t put sloes in it and bury it in the ground for six weeks, would they? They’d neck it. Originating in the Basque Country, but now popular throughout Spain, pacharán – patxarán to the picky Vascos – is a strongly addictive version using sweet anis instead of gin.
8) Brandy Alexander – equal parts brandy, dark crème de cacao and fresh cream shaken with ice; strain into a cocktail glass and sprinkle with ground nutmeg.9) Buck’s Fizz (aka Mimosa) – build, if you must, two parts chilled fresh orange juice and one of Champagne in a flute and thereby diminish both ingredients. Revivify the zombie by simple means of the addition of one part vodka to four of the mix and you have Agua de Valencia. The disingenuousness of the name greatly enhances the frisson of naughtiness surrounding the consumption of the typical jugful of it. Anybody fortunate enough to have witnessed a traditional Valenciano firework fight will have pondered to what extent the intake of ‘Agua’ will have been influential upon the conduct of the ‘fuegos’ and vice versa.
10) Champagne Cocktail – build a small lump of sugar, two dashes of bitters, one part brandy and nine parts chilled champagne in a flute glass, garnish with a maraschino cherry, a twist of orange and an unshakeable sense of superiority.
Peter Grogan is the author of Grogan's Companion to Drink.
