Having the right ingredients on hand is key to this delicious, tummy warmer of a drink. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ordered a hot toddy at fancy bars and I get bourbon with water and lemon. Not even a honey packet! No thank you. I want all of the spices that make this drink pack some oomph! Sure you can just add a cinnamon stick and honey to it, but it really zests it up to add star anise pods and poke whole cloves into the lemon (so they don’t float around). Oooweee it’s the little things, right?
I purchased some star anise pods from an Asian grocery store when I made Pho broth, and decided to add them to my toddy one cold winter evening. Since I drink a lot of Chai tea, which has all kinds of lovely spices, I thought I would give this a try. And to be honest, I have used Chai tea as a backdrop to my toddies before I had the right kicker spices. All of those star anise pods are making themselves useful! Of course no toddy is complete without a cinnamon stick and a dollop of honey.
I don’t usually skimp on the quality of my choice of bourbon, and if you can find a bottle of the Smoked Maple made so kindly by Knob Creek, BUY SOME for your toddies! You can see in the photo below that mine has been loved. It’s cold here in Minnesota. Very, very cold in the winter.
Probably don’t need to spell this out, but yes those are Lindt chocolates in front of the Nightmare Before Christmas mug. Now you know me.
So if you are fighting a cold, this is a sweet remedy that gives you a warm feeling and is a better fix to sleep off the bug than NyQuil. Or if you are warming up after a day of skiing, sledding, or just brushing mounds of snow off of your vehicle, this does the trick. For those of you in warmer climates, trust me when I tell you that my great great aunt lived in Manhattan Beach, CA and she was known for loving her toddy before bed. Perhaps it might be a good idea to fix a toddy to sit by the bonfire pit and contemplate why you never bought dried star anise pods before.
Hot Toddy ingredients:
Hot Toddy with Oomph
- February 9, 2021
- 1
- 5 min
- Print this
Ingredients
- 1 oz good bourbon, preferably Knob Creek Smoked Maple
- 6 oz hot water, not quite boiling
- 1 T honey
- Lemon wedge, stuffed with whole cloves
- Cinnamon stick
- Star anise pod
Directions
- Step 1
- Add bourbon to the hot water
- Step 2
- Mix in honey, lemon stuffed with cloves, cinnamon stick, and anise pod.
- Step 3
- ENJOY!
- Step 4
- …repeat
Song for the Prep: Hot Blooded by Foreigner
Did you think I wasn’t going to post that one?