Holly Jolly Hot Toddy (with mocktail)

Festive, warm, and cozy Holly Jolly Hot Toddy (+mocktail) featuring hot earl grey tea, local whiskey, fresh lemon juice, and peach cardamom jam. Rim your glasses with warming cardamom sugar, garnish with a cinnamon stick and curl up next to your Christmas tree. Holiday cocktail season is here!

This post is sponsored by Shop Taste NY, the official “Eat Local, Drink Local” program for New York State. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Abra's Kitchen.

As always all thoughts, opinions, recipes, and musings are my own.

Holiday entertaining is so much better with a homemade cocktail/mocktail. A few simple ingredients, a quick mixology lesson, and you are ready to create your own signature cocktails/mocktails!

WHY YOU'LL LOVE THIS RECIPE

• I am teaching you the #1 trick to making amazing craft cocktails at home!
• A few simple ingredients transform into a warming festive cocktail (or mocktail) that will be the hit of your next holiday celebration, or to brighten up a cold January day.

Let's Get Shaking!

INGREDIENTS NEEDED

Detailed measurements and ingredients can be found within the recipe card at the end of this post.

• Earl Grey Tea – Black tea will work, as will hot water.
• Whiskey – Technically a hot toddy can be made with rum or whiskey and dark rum would work equally well in this recipe.
• Peach Cardamom Jam – No need to make complicated infusions for this cocktail, we are leaning into easy and harnessing the power of craft made jams!
• Lemon juice – fresh is best
• Brown sugar and Ground Cardamom – to make a cardamom sugar rim for your glasses
• Cinnamon Sticks and Lemon – for garnish
• NOTE – For the mocktail version, you will need the rhubarb chamomile simple syrup + water + lemon juice

TOOLS YOU WILL USE:

• Cutting board
• Good knife
• Cocktail shaker – (Cute cocktail shaker I am using in the video below is linked here)

INSTRUCTIONS

• On a small plate combine cardamom and brown sugar, rub the rim of a mug with lemon juice and dip in the cardamom sugar for a festive and yummy sipping experience,
• In a cocktail shaker combine jam, lemon juice and whiskey. Shake until well blended.
• Pour over hot earl grey tea
• Garnish with fresh lemon slice and cinnamon stick

MIXOLOGY TIPS FOR PERFECT COCKTAILS EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Did you know I was a bartender in Greenwich Village NYC for 10 years? Yup, this healthy nutritionist has led many lives. Of all the lessons I learned during that life stage (and there were many) how to make a fantastic cocktail is by far the most useful.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Measure the alcohol! After a ton of practice, you may be able to eyeball quantity but until then I highly recommend measuring. You can purchase a little shot measurer, called a “jigger” which easily measures your shots in ounces. Or use your measuring spoons 1 ounce = 2 tablespoons
• Balance your cocktail. More alcohol is not always better, this is a common error I see in home cocktail-making. Here are a few tips to balance your drink:
  • *Too sweet – add a spoonful of lime or lemon juice
  • *Too sour – add simple syrup
  • *Too strong – add water or soda (club soda)
  • *Too weak – add more spirits

BEST EVER COCKTAIL HACK: USE JAM!

You know those craft cocktails that we all love; the basil strawberry margarita, the rosemary orange sidecar, the lemon thyme verbena martini dusted with moss from a 200-year-old rock 🙂

The craft cocktails that seem like the kind of thing you would NEVER make at home and barely feel confident enough to order when out? Yeah, those. I love them. If you saw my rhubarb chamomile margarita this summer you know that making cocktails is actually my jam… and speaking of jam… My friends, this is the hack to beat all hacks.

Rather than creating herb and fruit infusions to make tasty cocktails, just use jam!

There are incredible jam makers, like Fat Crow Organic from Troy New York, a small artisan company that hand-makes jams in small batches with incredible flavor combos like; peach cardamom, cherry amaretto, blackberry balsamic, and cranberry orange spice.

Use these jams as the main flavor component in your cocktails, just add booze.

THE 101 ON JAM COCKTAILS

Jam is sweet like simple syrup but fruitier, you may not be able to properly strain jam cocktails and that's ok! Add that fruit in.

A few tips:

• Jam cocktails are best enjoyed as soon as they are made. These are not drinks that work well in large batches. Over time the jam will fall to the bottom of the glass (gravity).
• Jam cocktails can easily be made into mocktails – simply skip the alcohol and shake with fresh squeezed citrus.

MOCKTAIL VERSION!

Turn this hot toddy into a warming cocktail for all to enjoy!

Simply replace the whiskey with fresh squeezed orange juice.

MORE DRINK RECIPES YOU WILL LOVE:

Fennel Cucumber Spritzer

Apple Cider Sparkler

Kombucha Cocktail

Tart Cherry Sleepytime Elixir

I can’t wait for you to try this Holly Jolly Hot Toddy! When you make it, snap a photo and tag me on Instagram @abrapappa or use the hashtag #abraskitchen so I can feature your photo! 

If you’ve tried this recipe, don’t forget to rate it and leave a comment below. I love to hear from people who’ve made my recipes!

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