Cocktail Questions: Last-Minute Christmas Queries

Hot-buttered batches. Holiday drinks. And what, exactly, is Wassail?

Turns out new puppies have a lot of energy, need a lot of supervision, and also really like to get up in the middle of the night. Good thing they’re also extremely—I do mean extremely—cute.

You have sent me a lot of questions! I may not be able to respond to every single one. But I’m trying to work through as many as I can. Please keep sending them!

Today, I wanted to respond to some last-minute holiday drinking questions before it’s too late.

So for this edition of Cocktail Questions, we’ll look at:

• Batching holiday cocktails

• What’s a good way to make Wassail? Also, uh, what is Wassail?

Do you have a question about cocktails, bars, booze, home bartending, or something else related to the topics discussed in this newsletter? Send your pithy, clear question to me at cocktailswithsuderman@gmail.com

Batching Hot Buttered Booze—in a Coffee Pot?

I’m trying to come up with some kind of Christmas punch or batched cocktail to serve to a group of 6 on Christmas day. My wife usually makes eggnog but we want to do something different this year. I was just reading your article on hot buttered cocktails and I wonder if it would be possible to batch them and maybe keep it warm in a coffee pot? What do you think? Any other ideas you have for something else would be great too. Doesn’t have to be a hot or warm drink. Thanks and Merry Christmas!

—Bill

Batched hot buttered cocktails in a coffee pot? Maybe. I suppose it could work. It’s not a crazy idea! I might even try it over the break.

But I’ve never seen any recipe that calls for that approach to warming, and I’m always a tiny bit cautious about any technique that seems easy or obvious but that isn’t in widespread circulation. Surely someone would have recommended this by now? Or maybe it works quite well, and you’ll be the person to tell the world.

For a batched version of Hot-Buttered Anything—and I really do believe you can hot-butter just about anything in the world of spirits and cocktails—my first instinct would be to make it in either a slow cooker or a stovetop pan.

Make sure the mix is properly integrated, then set the slow cooker on low or dial down the burner heat to a low simmer. Leave a big, heat-safe spoon nearby so you can continue to stir the mix throughout the night.

My own go-to batched Christmas drink is a mulled wine with brandy, honey, and spices. I wrote about it last year.

I make mulled wine for cold-weather gatherings at home, as well as our office Christmas get-together—although we didn’t have it this year since there was some confusion over who was supposed to bring a heating implement. (We did have eggnog.)

Mulled wine is delicious, adaptable, forgiving, and easy to scale up or down to accommodate a smaller or larger group. For 6 people, I’d recommend building a batch off of a base of two bottles of drinkable but inexpensive red wine. On a cold night, it’s hard to go wrong with wine, brandy, honey, citrus, and spices heated together.

For something boozier and colder, but still seasonally appropriate, you can also scale up most Manhattan-esque recipes, batching, pre-diluting, and freezing them using the guidelines I laid out earlier this year.