The social drinker

Christmas is the time of year when we tend to avoid whatever we do during the rest of the year, and replace those habits with another set of habits that often date back to Victorian times. Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at a few suggestions for the festive season, but let’s kick off with alternatives to hot whiskey when you want to keep winter at bay.

If you are tiring of hot whiskies, a cinnamon butter rum is a surprisingly tasty and easy hot drink. It can be made by gently heating 25g of butter, two tablespoons of caster sugar and two small cinnamon sticks in a pan, before adding 200ml of rum. Simply pour the resulting mixture into four glasses, and you have a drink that should not work, but does.

Mulled wine is a staple of the Christmas party, but even this old favourite can surprise. Using white wine is one way to serve up something different. To make a big bowl of mulled white wine, simply heat two bottles of cheap medium-dry white wine, 500ml of light cider, 150ml of elderflower cordial, the zest of two lemons, two cinnamon sticks, one vanilla pod, and five tablespoons of caster sugar. Serve when the mulled wine is steaming but before it starts to boil.

This week’s final hot drink, the eggnog, pictured below, is popular in the US but hardly ever drunk on this side of the Atlantic for reasons I’ve never understood. Every American drinker worth his or her salt has an eggnog recipe, but it can be a tad tricky, so here is an easy one for beginners.

Start by simmering 200ml of cream along with 40g of sugar and a large pinch of ground nutmeg. Separately, put four eggs into a blender and blend for a minute before adding the warm cream, sugar and nutmeg mixture. Blend for about 30 seconds, and finally add around 50ml of brandy. Serve immediately.