A Brief History of Hot Drinks

Mulled Wine

There was a time when a hot drink was one of the best and fastest ways to warm yourself and it all begins with mulled wine. Mulled wine is a hot drink that has its roots in Roman times and is generally credited to the era. It was printed in cookbooks by the 14th century, so it is an assuredly ancient concoction. By the 18th century mulled wine was a staple in England and across much of mainland Europe. It made questionable wine more palatable and was revered as a health tonic for those who drank it. It could be found at markets and stands and was a quintessential way to beat the winter chill. In its most simple form, it is warmed wine, spices, and citrus but many offshoots of this drink can be found, from the smoking bishop- a port-based hot drink popularized in The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens- to the Swedish Lutendrank- a warm spiced wine and milk concoction. Cognac was often added to mulled wine to fortify the drink and add some pep. 

Hot Toddy

Another exemplary and notorious warm cocktail is the hot toddy. Almost everyone is familiar with this drink; perhaps your grandma has suggested it when you were coming down with a cold, or maybe it’s just what you think of when you walk into a bar from a bone-chilling snowstorm. This drink like many other classic cocktails makes an appearance in Jerry Thomas’s Bartender’s Guide from 1862. Also like many other classics, this drink has more than one supposed origin. Some say the Toddy was created in India when it was controlled by the British, and that its name comes from the Hindi word “Taddy.” This means a beverage made from fermented palm sap. David Wondrich credits the drink to Scotland, though he notes in Imbibe that it was first found in print in the mid-18th century in a Boston publication. It was defined then as “a beverage made of alcoholic liquor with hot water sugar and spices.” No matter the origin, it was a very popular American drink by the early 18th century. This drink was and is often used as a health tonic for anything that ails you. Physicians in days past had been known to prescribe it for an array of illnesses. It is most often made with whiskey but can be made with any spirit and a wide range of variations can be found of this drink- from using honey, agave, or sugar as the sweetener, to the addition of lemon, orange wheels, a variety of spices and even herbal tea to the mix. 

Hot buttered rum is another drink present in Jerry Thomas’s staple bartending book. This drink is often credited to the colonial Americans. New England was extremely influential in the popularity of rum during that era and therefore it was a very common spirit in American libations at the time. The addition of butter to drinks was nothing new; butter had been added to beer and other drinks for centuries before. Henry VIII reportedly used buttered beer as a remedy for hoarseness. Like all the classics there are many iterations of this drink but the first records are simple. David Wondrich in Imbibe records the cocktail as containing sugar, rum, spices, a pat of butter, and hot water. He continues that the preference is a pot-stilled rum, but that any dark rum will do. However, the drink can be much more complex. Wayne Curtis, author of “And a Bottle of Rum” offers a decadent version that includes ice cream in the butter batter and suggests keeping it frozen until adding it to rum and hot water. While it is somewhat of an obscure historical drink, it had enough of a moment in history to have a holiday given to it. January 17th is hot buttered rum day.