Hot Drink

Hot chocolate is not the only winter warmer. There’s a whole variety of spiced, sweetened, and heated beverages that contain no milk, no chocolate, and no caffeine. At Bubby’s, I’ve tinkered with some of these traditional hot drinks to come up with some beverages that have become pretty popular in their own right. Here are a couple of examples of our spiced, sweetened, and heated beverages.

You can substitute another coffee-flavored liqueur for the Kahlúa and, of course, increase or decrease the amount of liqueur, depending upon your taste.

Schnapps is a strong, colorless alcoholic beverage made from potatoes or grains. Peppermint is the most common flavoring in schnapps, which comes from the German word Schnaps, which means “mouthful.” If you like chocolate-covered mints, this is the drink for you.

Remember that great Irish coffee starts with excellent brewed coffee.

To “mull” wine simply means to flavor it with anything from spices to fruits as it heats. A warming brunch drink on chilly days, this one relies on the best-quality brandy you can find. It’s a matter of personal preference as to what kind of wine to use. I like a nice Cabernet or Merlot.

A delicious way to end the meal, especially in cold weather, this drink is better than dessert. Feel free to multiply the recipe for a large group.

This toddy, a warming way to start brunch on a wintry day, is served in sugar-rimmed mugs and garnished with a stick of cinnamon. To make this for a crowd, mix up the rum and brown sugar and cloves ahead of time and add the boiling water at the last minute.

Wonderful but very rich, eggnog is best served in small portions. Though good hot or cold, I always serve it hot in the winter. This can be made a day ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator.

This is another Junior League favorite. Make it in the winter and serve it at a cold-weather brunch. You could keep this hot in a slow cooker, turned to the low setting, for several hours.

This refreshing drink needs just a hint of sweetener, as sassafras is naturally quite sweet.

I’ve been playing with ginger in its various forms for years. From an Ayurvedic (traditional eastern Indian medicine) perspective, ginger “fires” the body’s digestive hearth, to make the stomach and colon more efficient in metabolizing food. Here I’ve combined ginger with cinnamon’s round, sweet flavor to create a modified Chai tea with some great health benefits. Cinnamon regulates blood sugar, while both ginger and cinnamon contain tumor inhibitors. This tea is a great way to wake up both your taste buds and your tummy.

This tea is a little like a mother’s gentle belly rub for a sick child, as both peppermint and ginger have qualities that relax the smooth muscles that surround the intestine.

My mentor, Annemarie Colbin, is both a pioneer in the field of nutrition and healing and an extremely generous woman. The founder of the cooking school I attended, the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, Annemarie has a PhD in nutrition and is the author of Food and Healing, considered a bible among chefs who believe in using food to support health. She’s graciously allowed me to use this recipe from that book; it’s a stress-relieving elixir that’s a calmative in a cup. The only thing I’ve done is add a little ginger and cinnamon. For those days when you need a hug pronto and there’s no one around to soothe your nerves, this kudzu concoction will do the trick.

You may have heard the slogan “You’ve tried the rest; now try the best.” That’s the way I feel about this tea recipe. It was developed ages ago by the fantastic folk at the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, a renowned retreat for patients and caregivers, and they’ve been very kind in allowing me to share their recipe with you. When I am cooking at Commonweal, I often make about six quarts a day so I’ll have some on hand for anyone who comes through the door, and still, it’s never enough. The blend of ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom is like a backrub in a cup. It turns me into absolute mush, it’s so good.

This is a Christmas favorite at my house, perfect for everything from big holiday parties to a quiet winter night at home. Sometimes I put a batch of it on to simmer just because its delicious fragrance of warm spice and apple fills the house and makes me happy.

Whenever we get a bucket of lemon verbena from Bill Dow, former doctor and for thirty years now a farmer on his Ayrshire Farm, its powerful scent takes over the kitchen and has me woozy trying to come up with different ways of using it. It’s one of those delicious aromatic herbs like winter savory, lavender, and rau ram (Vietnamese cilantro)—intoxicating when held in a big fresh bunch but tough to take as the main flavor in a meal. Lemon verbena goes well with summer fruits like watermelon and peaches, adds a mystery flavor when stuffed inside a roast chicken, and makes a fine sherbet. It’s easy to grow, and if you find yourself with a bumper crop on the eve of the first frost, it is simple to preserve it by grinding the leaves along with some white sugar in a food processor until it combines into aromatic, bright green sand. The sugar will last perfectly for months in the freezer and can be used to flavor drinks, ice creams, custards, and fruit compotes.

I find that soy milk most closely mimics the creamy consistency and richness of traditional hot chocolate, but I know some people don’t care for its nutty flavor. If you fall into that camp, rice milk or oat milk will yield equally delicious results. If you choose to substitute either of these alternatives, though, use just 3 tablespoons agave nectar, or your hot chocolate will be far too sweet.