A steaming mug of whiskey, honey, lemon and hot water laced with warm spice — a cold-weather nightcap and folk remedy for the sniffles. Honey rounds off the spirit's edge while lemon keeps it bright, and clove and a cinnamon stick send up a fragrant steam that starts soothing before the first sip.
Garnish: Cinnamon Stick, Lemon Wheel
built · Mug
add
Add the honey and lemon juice to a warmed mug.
build
Pour in the whiskey, then top with hot water and stir until the honey dissolves.
garnish
Garnish with a cinnamon stick and a clove-studded lemon wheel; serve hot.
No single inventor can be named. The word "toddy" comes from an Indian drink of fermented palm sap and had come to mean hot liquor in English by 1786, while rival stories place the drink's birth in 18th-century Scotland or connect it to the physician Robert Bentley Todd. Jerry Thomas set down its bones in his 1862 Bar-Tender's Guide — spirit and sugar dissolved in boiling water, finished with nutmeg rather than lemon. Lemon, honey and clove-studded spice came later, filling out that spare template into the comfort drink poured today.