LOL, It’s a Hot Negroni

Take your mulled wine and transform it into a warming, bittersweet Negroni-esque cocktail. Welcome to Hot January!

There’s a winter storm heading for the East Coast this weekend. We might even get a dusting of snow here in Washington, D.C. 

Finally — finally! — it’s cold. And cold weather calls for warm drinks. 

Welcome to Hot January. 

I can’t quite promise that every drink we make this month will be a warm drink. But most of them will be. We’ll look at the fundamentals of hot drinks — how they work, how to make them, and how to make them better. 

And because I…

• Love, love, love — did I mention love? — Negronis 

• and also enjoy taking existing ingredients and finding tasty new ways to use them

…we’re going start with an easy, fun, riff on everyone’s favorite three-ingredient bittersweet cocktail, the Negroni that builds on last week’s big-batch mulled wine recipe. 

More specifically, we’re going to take that mulled wine, add a couple of ingredients, and make a Hot Negroni — or, for those more inclined to whiskey drinks, a Hot Boulevardier.

This recipe allows you to take your mulled wine and transform it into something a little stronger. It also gives you something to do with any leftover mulled wine you might have, since you can make this with mulled wine that’s been bottled and saved after the night it’s first made. 

It’s simple, relatively quick to make, and delicious, and while it probably won’t appeal to the most ardent members of the anti-Campari camp, it should work as an introductory cocktail for those who find Negronis a little too intense, since it reduces the amount of Campari in the cocktail relative to other ingredients, and since the warmth helps cut the intensity of the bitter booze. 

In the (Ver)Mouth of Madness

In last week’s newsletter, I argued that mulled wine was kinda, sorta, a little like vermouth. Serious vermouth people might take issue with this, since vermouth production is a fairly specific thing, with laws about ingredients and production processes, and the mulled wine we made last week is definitely not real vermouth. 

But I stand by my assertion that mulled wine with spices, honey, and brandy is kinda, sorta, a little like vermouth. No, it’s not vermouth, period, but there is a resemblance. It’s virtual vermouth. Syntha-vermouth. Quasi-vermouth. Vermouth-esque.

Cocktails always involve casting decisions, and sometimes you want the real Harrison Ford, but sometimes you realize Dustin Hoffman — who is very much not in any way Harrison Ford! — will work instead. And, folks, that’s how we got Outbreak. Anyway. 

What we’re going to do is take that mulled wine and use it as vermouth. We’ll add gin and Campari, plus a little bit of additional warm water — and it’s going to end up in the zone of a Negroni, but hot.

Hence, the Hot Negroni. 

This is really not very complicated. But it is quite delicious — it takes the sweet, spicy, easy-going mulled wine and gives it a bittersweet botanical kick. 

The Heat Is On

The tricks to this drink are: