Cocktail · Medium strength
Hot Toddy
Whiskey, honey, lemon, hot water — a blanket with an ABV.
How to order it: Cinnamon stick, clove-studded lemon wheel. For nights that need fixing.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 2 oz whiskey
- ¾ oz honey
- ½ oz lemon juice
- 4 oz hot water
- Cinnamon stick, clove-studded lemon
The story
The toddy emerged from eighteenth-century Scotland, where hot water, sugar, and whisky were a standard prescription for everything the climate inflicted. Even the name is a pleasant argument: some trace it to Tod's Well, an Edinburgh water source, others to tārī, a Hindi word for palm sap that sailed home with the East India trade. Generations of doctors winked at it as cold remedy, and modern medicine concedes at least the honey, lemon, and steam are doing honest work. It endures because it occupies a niche no other drink wants: the cocktail for feeling terrible. Whiskey as comfort rather than celebration — a hearth you can hold.
Adjacent pours