10 Best Hot Bourbon Drinks Of All Time Ranked
As the weather cools down and the holidays go into full swing, hot bourbon drinks are all the rage. Bourbon goes well with everything from eggnog and hot mulled wine to coffee and hot chocolate. Bourbons have flavor profiles different from English, Scotch, and Irish whiskeys. Corn gives bourbon its distinct sweetness (via Food and Wine). Plus, the grain-drying process never results in the flavor you find in whiskey dried over peat fires (via Whiskey). Vinepair says that bourbon flavors range between delicate, spicy, sweet, and rich, which makes it the perfect pairing for hot drinks. Since most hot drinks with bourbon call for spices or contain cream, bourbon makes the perfect accompaniment, blending in with the other flavors of the drink rather than overwhelming it. The trick is to ensure that you're choosing tasting notes in your bourbon that goes well with the drink. A bourbon with caramel notes might go well with a cider drink, while one with spicy notes might work best with a hot toddy.
Just like trying new whiskies and bourbons, some bourbon drinks can become quite an obsession. For example, you may find yourself seeking out new flavor experiences with pairings of amaro, coffee, and bourbon in an amaro and bourbon-spiked coffee. And bourbon milk punches provide a never-ending array of flavors to try. Let your need for a hot drink and your flavor cravings be your guide this season as you try some of the best hot bourbon drinks of all time.
10. Warm old fashioned
The Old Fashioned has been around since at least 1880 when the flamboyant bourbon aristocrat, James E. Pepper, invented the drink at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky (via Thrillist). He later brought the drink to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel bar in New York City, which launched its fame. While it was not really an old-fashioned drink in the late 1800s, it certainly is now.
A classic Old Fashioned cocktail recipe has just six ingredients: bourbon, angostura bitters, a sugar cube, and an orange peel and maraschino cherry for garnish. While you normally drink an Old Fashioned over ice, there's a good reason to try drinking your Old Fashioned warm. Topping an Old Fashioned off with hot water (in an amount equal to your bourbon) intensifies the flavors of the drink. Adding water to whiskey enhances the flavor by both lessening the burning sensation of the alcohol and bringing out more of the subtleties of the bourbon's flavor components. According to America's Taste Kitchen, this flavor change happens on the molecular level in an unexpected way — it frees up more aroma molecules. Because smell and taste are interconnected, freeing up more of the bourbon's smell makes it taste more complex. When you consider how much more of the aroma molecules reach your nose in steaming, hot bourbon drinks, you'll get the idea of how much more you can appreciate the flavor depths of your best bourbon when you turn it into a hot old fashioned.
9. Bourbon Mulled Wine
Hot mulled wine has been delighting tastebuds since the ancient Greeks started adding spices to lower-quality wine to make it more palatable. The Romans copied the idea and passed it onward to Northern Europeans in the Middle Ages, where it took off. But it was Charles Dickens who gave us the idea of mulled wine as a holiday drink with his mention of Smoking Bishop mulled wine in his 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol (via Vine Pair).
While making mulled wine with just wine and spices is nice, adding other intoxicants like bourbon is even nicer to get you both toasted and toasty on a cold winter's night. Start with a bottle of wine, and add spices, a sweetener like sugar or honey, oranges or a dash of orange-flavored liqueur like Cointreau, and a splash or two of bourbon. Popular mulling spices include cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, cardamom pods (slightly crushed), ginger, nutmeg, and star anise.
Keep in mind that there are some mistakes to avoid with making mulled wine. Moderation is key. Adding too much spice, adding too much extra alcohol, or heating it at too high of a temperature can ruin your mulled wine. Matching Food and Wine says that gently warming rather than boiling your bourbon mulled wine ensures that it won't become bitter.
8. Hot eggnog
Hot, milky, egg-based ale drinks called "possets" were popularized in medieval Britain and were common enough for Shakespeare to feature them in two of his plays — Hamlet and Macbeth (via Modern Farmer). Monks first added eggs and figs to their possets in the 13th century (via Time). Possets evolved again in the 16th century when wealthier drinkers began to add citrus, spices, and sugar (but not necessarily eggs). The phrase "eggnog" for the evolving posset beverage didn't appear until 1775 in the U.S., taking the word "nog" from a strong type of ale from Norfolk (via Online Etymology Dictionary). In the U.S. colonies, sugar was cheap, so eggnog wasn't necessarily a drink of the rich. Plus, adding alcohol to milk and eggs prevents them from spoiling so quickly. A modern recipe for homemade eggnog contains milk, whipping cream, egg yolks, nutmeg, vanilla extract, and sugar. To make it boozy, just swap out ¼ of the milk for bourbon.
With its spicy, creamy goodness, hot eggnog remains among the most iconic hot bourbon drinks of the end-of-the-year holiday season. However, many people are nervous about drinking homemade eggnog since eating raw or undercooked eggs can be a source of Salmonella bacterial poisoning. Luckily, cooking your eggnog until it reaches at least 160 F will kill any Salmonella (via CDC). If you don't get the eggnog hot enough, adding bourbon should help finish off the job of knocking pathogens down to safe levels (via ABC News).
7. Amaro and bourbon-spiked coffee
Amaro owes its origins to Italian monks who made these herbs- and root-based tonic liqueurs years ago to supplement their monastery incomes. Today, in Italy, they're still often offered as a digestif at the conclusion of a meal (via Wine Enthusiast). The word "amaro" comes from the Italian word "bitter," referring to the various botanical ingredients infused into wine when making an amaro. There are no real rules about what makes an amaro, so you can find them infused with anything from balsam fir or wormwood to spices like cardamom, cloves, or saffron. One of the draws of amaro is that no two amari (the plural of amaro) taste the same because the recipes are well-guarded company or family secrets (via Sprudge).
If you're a beverage snob who is particular about your coffee and your bourbons, why not add amaro to your repertoire? Combining the perfect mix of three beverages that are known for complex tasting notes could easily become an obsession. Since amaro and coffee are both bitter after-dinner drinks that people consume to help with digestion, they go well together. You'll want to do a little experimentation to figure out how the different tasting notes of your various beverages go together. A great way to make amaro and bourbon-spiked coffee is with hot coffee (brewed your favorite way), bourbon, crème de cacao, amaro, a splash of your favorite bitters, and sugar and cream to taste.
6. Bourbon-spiked hot apple cider
When we think about apples, a red, juicy, and sweet fruit comes to mind. However, until we cultivated them for sweetness, they were often too bitter to consume until they'd been pressed and fermented into a hard cider beverage. People in the British Isles were drinking cider when the Romans first visited in 55 B.C.E., and it was the Romans who then spread it throughout Europe. It later made its way across to the New World with colonists who used local apple trees to make a boozy drink that was safer to drink than water sometimes was (via Smithsonian).
There's no need to wait around for your mashed apples to ferment if you want to make bourbon-spiked hot apple cider. You can either add bourbon to store-bought hot cider or a small batch of homemade apple cider. Choose a bourbon with tasting notes that go well with apples, like spice, caramel, and vanilla. Adding spices like cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, cardamom, allspice, and ginger when you warm the cider will make this hot bourbon drink even more special, especially to serve as a hot holiday drink. You might even consider rimming your mug with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg for added pizzaz.
5. Hot toddy
The hot toddy came from British-controlled India, where the British appropriated the Indian "taddy" as their own (via Vine Pair). An Indian taddy was a sweetened, spiced alcoholic beverage made with hot water. Back in England and Scotland, pubs would pour hot water over whiskey and flavor it with exotic Indian spices to make what became known as hot toddies.
By the mid-19th century in the U.S., people were drinking hot toddies as a cure-all for the common cold. While it may sound like a folk remedy, some ingredients in hot toddies are actually good for colds. A classic hot toddy recipe contains hot water, bourbon, lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, and other spices like star anise. A 2008 study shows that drinking hot drinks help improve coughing and nasal drainage, while a 2007 study indicates that honey helps relieve coughs better in children than the cough-suppressant dextromethorphan. And a 2013 study shows that Vitamin C (found in lemons) makes cold symptoms less severe and shortens their longevity.
Hot toddies are among the best-known hot bourbon drinks. It would be easy to make a list of the best bourbon hot toddies with so many hot toddy variations out there. You'll see recipes with every spice under the sun, from cayenne pepper to ginger. Some people add tea bags to their hot toddies for a whole other level of flavor, choosing everything from vanilla chai to ginger tea, Irish breakfast tea, lemon tea, or mint tea (via Reddit).
4. Kentucky coffee
When Europeans settled in Kentucky in the 1700s, they discovered that Kentucky was the perfect setting with the perfect weather for making whiskey. As a result, Kentucky holds the distinction of being the origin of most of the world's bourbon whiskies, with 70 distilleries located within the state (via Travel and Leisure). So, it's only natural that Kentucky coffee would be loaded with bourbon.
Our bourbon coffee recipe calls for a creamy, vanilla, bourbon-infused Kentucky coffee. It gets ⅔ cups of coffee to one shot of bourbon. Then, along with a bourbon caramel sauce, butter, and heavy whipping cream, you've got quite a smooth beverage. We recommend topping it with whipped cream or sprinkles of nutmeg. As it seems, the two most important parts of Kentucky coffee are hot coffee and bourbon. Even with this recipe, the proportions and everything else you add are really up to you.
The Whiskey Reviewer says that the best bourbon pairings for coffee are ones with notes of vanilla, caramel, and honey. You might also enjoy pairing coffee with bourbons that are fruity or have hints of spice.
3. Bourbon hot chocolate
Chocolate drinks first became a hit in Spain in the 1500s when Spanish explorers brought cocoa beans back from Mexico. The Spaniards added pepper, vanilla, sugar, and cinnamon and mixed it with wine or beer. The drink was popular enough to be served at Catholic mass. By 1643, they were heating the drink into hot chocolate. When hot chocolate reached England, the Brits began to add milk and serve it in chocolate houses (via What's Cooking America).
It's not surprising that hot chocolate and bourbon are a happy pairing. A splash of bourbon is all you need to make your hot chocolate boozy. Many people make their hot chocolate from a packet. Still, you'll have better results, making it fresh with cocoa powder and sugar, chocolate syrup, chocolate chips, or chocolate bar squares warmed with milk. Don't forget to add whipped cream, marshmallows, and chocolate syrup or chocolate shavings on top for a more decadent drink.
Emily Cappiello, brand ambassador for Coopers' Craft Bourbon, told Forbes that some of the best bourbons to pair with chocolate are ones with caramel and vanilla notes. Or, if you're looking for a unique flavor pairing, you might try a bourbon with stone fruit or citrus notes.
2. Hot buttered bourbon
If you've never tried a hot buttered bourbon, you're in for a treat. It's one of the best hot bourbon drinks of all time. Not only is it spicy and creamy, but it will leave your lips butter-kissed and moisturized. Hot buttered drinks are nothing new. In fact, hot buttered bourbon is a grandchild of hot buttered rum. Spirited Drinks says that the first hot buttered rum appeared in Kerry Thomas' 1887 book "The Bartenders Guide." People have altered the recipe over the years to suit their needs, substituting hot cider for the water or bourbon for the rum.
The best way to make a hot buttered bourbon is to start with a tongue-twisting concoction called buttered bourbon batter. Our hot buttered rum recipes call for making your buttered batter in a mixer with melted butter, brown sugar, cream, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In this case, we'll substitute rum for bourbon. With the drink being so tasty, you're likely to want to make the extra batter so that you have some on hand throughout the holidays. For convenience, you can keep the leftover batter in the fridge or freeze it in single-serving ice cubes for up to three months. Some people even add leftover batter to desserts. Once you've made the batter, the rest of the drink is easy. You'll combine one part of bourbon with four parts of hot water. Then, we suggest adding half a part of the buttered bourbon batter and top with freshly-grated nutmeg.
1. Bourbon milk punch
The best hot bourbon drink, bourbon milk punch, was created by a British lady spy and writer from the 1600s named Aphra Behn. A commercial version appeared in the mid-19th century; Benjamin Franklin had a favorite milk punch recipe which he shared in 1887's "The White House Cookbook" (via Vinepair). This old-fashioned drink has made its way to trendy bars. Because milk punch has a complex layering of flavors, it can easily become an obsession, with bartenders pushing the limits of the flavor profile. Trick Dog bar founder Scott Baird told VinePair, "I could absolutely see myself having a bar that is just straight spirits and milk punch. It's always a home run."
When Aphra Behn made her first milk punch, she combined alcohol with tea, citrus juice, and warm milk. If you're envisioning that turning into a curdled mess, you'd be correct. But once you strain the curdled milk through a cheesecloth, the results are a revelation. The beauty of milk punch is that you can tailor it to fit any occasion or flavor. (Traditional hot milk punch recipes call for brandy, but you're better off for swapping to bourbon). If you're lactose intolerant, you can make it with any dairy milk alternative, too. Choose any fruit you'd like or none at all. Add spices like cinnamon, ginger, or cardamom to match the flavor profile. You can build your milk punch to match your bourbon flavor notes or choose your bourbon to match your other ingredients.