The Hot Toddy and a General Theory of Hot Cocktails
Hot January continues.
If you are reading this newsletter, then there is a very good chance you have made an Old Fashioned.
The Old Fashioned is the original cocktail, and its standard proportions — 2 ounces spirit, a teaspoon or so of syrup (or possibly sugar), plus a couple dashes of bitters — should be familiar to almost anyone who even occasionally makes cocktails.
That simple, elemental idea — spirit, sweetener, and bitters, stirred over ice — is the baseline template from which so many other drinks and drink formats were created. Once you understand it, you can use it to create and modify any number of drinks.
Similarly, the Hot Toddy is the baseline template for hot cocktails, and once you understand the basic Hot Toddy formula, you can use it to mix, match, swap, and substitute your way to a large number of new and different drinks. Learn to make a Hot Toddy, and a vast new universe of cocktails opens up for experimentation.
So in today’s newsletter, we’re going to break down the core elements and proportions of the Hot Toddy format. Then we’ll look at a recipe for my make my favorite basic Hot Toddy, with rye whiskey and maple syrup. And then we’ll discuss how to modify, swap, and iterate within the Toddy format to make other hot cocktails using the same structure.
In the process, we’ll arrive at something approximating a General Theory of Hot Cocktails — a theory that will show how the Hot Toddy format draws not only from the Old Fashioned, but from long drinks like the Collins and even from some frozen blended drinks like the Frozen Margarita.
By the end, you will not only be able to make a delicious, warming, and wintry rye whiskey Hot Toddy — you should also be able to workshop your own original hot cocktails using whatever ingredients you happen to have on your bar cart.
Wait, It’s All Old Fashioneds? Always Was.
The first thing to understand is that the Hot Toddy is, itself, a kind of modified Old Fashioned, comprised of a base spirit, plus bitters and sweetener, all of which are combined with water before serving.
But in the Hot Toddy, the proportions are different. Most notably, the Toddy includes a substantially larger water component. After all, water — specifically hot water — is what makes the Hot Toddy, you know..hot.
You need a lot more water in a Hot Toddy than in an Old Fashioned for two reasons.