10 Mistakes You're Making With Your Hot Toddy

Fall is the time when we put away chilled beverages and opt for something a little more toasty — and if you want something slightly stronger than a pumpkin spice latte, then the hot toddy is for you. On the surface, hot toddies seem pretty easy: You can make a simple hot toddy out of whiskey, water, lemon juice, honey, and some choice aromatics. All you need to do is heat up your water, add your other ingredients, and serve. Seems straightforward, right?

The fact of the matter is that hot toddies are a little trickier to make than you might think. For such a rustic and homely drink that feels as though you can just throw in ingredients however you wish, getting its ratios right is essential, and using the wrong components in your drink can quickly ruin it. It's also all too easy to get one step of the process wrong, like boiling the drink for too long or forgetting to warm up your glass, which can cause your hot toddy to lose all of its punch — and punch is what you want here. We're going to show you exactly how to avoid all of those mistakes which are going to make your hot toddy worse than it could be.

When it comes to mixed drinks, ratio is everything — hot toddies are no different. This is a beverage that, if made wrong, can quickly become too sweet, too harsh, too spicy, or else lacking all flavor whatsoever. All of this happens when you get your ratios wrong: If you add too much whisky, you'll end up with a drink that tastes acrid and overly alcoholic, whereas adding too much water will leave you begging for a stronger taste. Opting for too much honey, on the other hand, will turn it into a sugary mess.

Crucially, different hot toddy recipes can have very different ratios, and it's important to figure out what works for you and your personal taste. Some recipes state that you should add equal amounts of whisky and water, while others ask you to put in way more water than whisky. You should experiment and find your personal sweet spot, and then learn to stick to it. Be careful not to add too much spice in, either: If you do, the drink will taste bitter. Generally speaking, you'll want one cinnamon stick and a touch of any other ground or grated spices in each drink.

There's a time and a place for bottled lemon juice, but it's not in a hot toddy. Lemon juice is an essential ingredient in hot toddies, since its flavor is essential to this drink. Lemon juice brings a slight acidity to hot toddies that's necessary to cut through the harshness of the alcohol, and it also stops the drink from becoming too sweet. Above all, it gives your hot toddy a freshness not found in the other ingredients.

However, that freshness just isn't quite there when you use bottled lemon juice. The bottled version just doesn't have the same zing as the fresh kind, and instead can often have a dull, acidic, slightly metallic taste. Bottled lemon juice only gives you the juice, and nothing else: You can't slice it up to put it in your hot toddy, and you can't use the zest, which can give your drink a glorious citrus scent and taste. There are also question marks around the level of vitamin C in bottled lemon juice.

A hot toddy is meant to be, as the name suggests, hot. However, all too often they can arrive at your table at a surprisingly tepid temperature. While this can sometimes happen when leaving the drink to cool on the stove for too long, a cold toddy is probably the victim of a cold glass, too. Pouring the hot liquid into a cold receptacle can quickly cool the outside of the drink, giving it a strange two-tone temperature, and in the worst case scenarios it can cause your glass to crack and break.

That's why the experts say that you should give your glass a boost of heat. "Always prewarm your Toddy glass with hot water," says Fistful Of Bourbon's U.S. brand ambassador Anthony Bohlinger over at Alcohol Professor. It's always best to use a sturdy glass that's designed to serve hot toddies, too. These glasses often have handles that allow you to hold the drink without scorching your fingers, and the glass they use is tough enough to withstand high temperatures.

Because hot toddies are meant to be warm, heating up your water or the liquid you're using is a key step. This is usually done in a pan at a low simmer on the stove, which allows you to keep an eye on exactly how hot it's getting and take it off the heat at exactly the right moment — and, crucially, before you add the whisky. However, a lot of the time, people will add their whisky while the drink is still boiling, and then leave it to bubble away for a long time while they prepare the other ingredients.

Well, if you do this, you should prepare yourself for a pretty weak drink. The whole point of hot toddies is that they're hot and strong. Boiling the alcohol for too long can cause it to evaporate, leaving you with less than you thought you'd have. Simmering a drink for around 15 minutes will get rid of around 60% of the alcohol in it, while it would take a good couple of hours for all of the alcohol to fully disappear. However, even a couple of minutes at a high boil can make your hot toddy weaker, so always add the booze after it's off the heat.

A hot toddy is only as good as the whisky (or whiskey) you add into it. Unfortunately, this is something that a lot of people forget. Plenty of folks assume that you can get away with a cheaper whisky in this drink, as it's mixed with so many other components that mask its flavor. If you follow this line of thinking, you should be prepared to drink a beverage that just isn't that good.

The whole point of whisky in a hot toddy is that it should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other ingredients, instead of being diminished by them. You want all of its nuance and flavor to shine through and to be complemented by the lemon juice, honey, and aromatics. So, opt for a good-quality beverage that you'd be just as happy drinking neat. Mainstream options like Woodford Reserve, Maker's Mark, and Wild Turkey are all good options, and you can also opt for some cheap but good whiskeys. Having said all this, we'd recommend saving any priceless bottles of whiskey you have, and drink them to their own. You don't want to use anything too expensive for a hot toddy.

A hot toddy is nothing without aromatics, but unfortunately they're a bit of an afterthought for some people. No-one forgets the honey, water, and the whisky in a hot toddy, but it's easy to think that you can get away without adding cinnamon, cloves, or nutmeg. After all, does it really make that much of a difference?

Yes, it does. Aromatics are key to a hot toddy, partly because of its origins. "The drink originally started in India (controlled by the British at the time) in the early 1600s and was more than likely brought back to the UK by spice traders and adapted to their palates," says Monkey Shoulder brand ambassador Anna Mains to Alcohol Professor. This is a drink that thrives on being spicy, and although you can leave it out, you lose a lot of nuance.

So, before you make your hot toddy, grab your spices. Cinnamon sticks are a must, and whole cloves can also give the drink a glorious depth and muskiness. Nutmeg can also add warmth to a hot toddy, while a dash of vanilla extract can give it an intensity that's amped up by the honey. For your whole spices, make sure you simmer them a little in the water to unlock their flavors. Most importantly, start with smaller amounts and build up, as too much flavor can destroy your drink.

Hot drinks usually need a minute or two to cool off before they can be drunk comfortably. However, waiting any longer than that can be their downfall. If you wait too long, that beverage that's meant to be enjoyed at a higher temperature will be tepid, giving you a drink that's lacking the aroma, flavor, and comforting quality that hot liquids provide.

This is especially true with hot toddies, which people have the knack of leaving to cool down way too long — and then they wonder why it doesn't taste that good. That's because it's meant to be hot! "So many times with hot toddies you order one and it's lukewarm," says Portland Hunt + Alpine Club owner Andrew Volk to Punch. "Temperature is one of the ingredients, you need to treat it as such," he adds.

When it's warm, its flavors meld together perfectly, but when cold it can taste strangely metallic. It's also important to remember that the function of a hot toddy is partly medicinal. It's meant to be a drink that soothes sore throats and alleviates cold symptoms, and it won't do any of that unless it's hot and steamy.

Water is one of the key ingredients in a hot toddy, right? Well, we don't think it always needs to be in there. Although you can definitely make a good hot toddy using water, one mistake that people make is using it as your sole base liquid. When you do this, you miss out on a host of different tastes, and your hot toddy will never stand out from the pack.

"I like to dress it up by replacing some of the water with something with a little more flavor," admits Glenfiddich brand ambassador Allan Roth to Alcohol Professor. Roth cites apple cider as one of his favorite alternatives, which can give hot toddies both a sprightly sweetness and a slight acidity that hits differently than the lemon juice. He also recommends using tea as a base: Both chai and rooibos can give your hot toddy depth, and even regular tea can add a lovely musky scent. If you want something sweeter and slightly spicy, ginger ale can be an awesome choice. You might lose some of its carbonation when you boil it, but it'll give your hot toddy a syrupy kick.

When using whisky in mixed drinks, it's easy to drop the ball by not considering the style you selected. This is as true for hot toddies as it is for anything else. Different whiskies have diverse flavor profiles, and the taste of Scotch whiskey can be very different from American or Irish styles. For example, Scotch has a smokiness that can be quite forceful in mixed drinks, while a hot toddy with rye can have a slight spiciness to it. Bourbon is slightly on the sweeter side and has prominent caramel notes, whereas Irish whiskey has a fruitiness to it.

All of these flavor shades will come through in your hot toddy — if anything, they'll be even more prominent than usual, due to the drink being heated up. Not every old whiskey will suit your taste buds: You can use pretty much any type of liquor you want, but they won't all give you the same end product.

Hot toddies rely on sweetness to bring all their flavors together, and you need ample amounts of it for the drink to really shine. However, in our opinion, there's a right and a wrong kind of sweetener to use in the drink. The traditional kind is honey. As the classic sweetener in the hot toddy, honey has a fruitiness and a mellow sweetness which works excellently with the other notes in the beverage. It also has a thickness to it which prevents it from watering down your hot toddy too much. As a vegan alternative to honey, you could try Agave syrup, which has a similar texture.

You should avoid using a sweetener that lacks in complexity. You want something that fills in the flavors of your hot toddy from loads of different angles, and doesn't just hit you over the head with sugariness. That unfortunately means that sugar syrup, while sometimes used by bartenders, doesn't quite hit the spot. Sugar syrup has a one-dimensional taste that gives your drink raw sweetness and not much else. Maple syrup can be a good alternative for people who follow a vegan diet, but it can also be a little thin and watery.