Hot Toddy

The Hot Toddy is a hot mixed drink built from a spirit — most traditionally Scotch or other whisky, though brandy and rum are common — sweetened with honey or sugar, sharpened with fresh lemon and topped with boiling water, often spiced with cloves and cinnamon and served steaming in a heatproof glass or mug. It is a simple, warming winter drink and one of the oldest and best known cold-weather cocktails in the English-speaking world. Soothing, sweet-sour and aromatic, it is taken as a nightcap and, in folk tradition, sipped to ease the symptoms of a cold or flu. Its name traces back through the eighteenth century to the toddy of India, a drink of fermented palm sap.