Drinks by theme

Christmas Drinks From History: Wassail, Smoking Bishop, Negus and Tom and Jerry

Old Christmas drinks from period books: wassail, lambswool, smoking bishop, negus, mulled wine, punch, eggnog and Tom and Jerry, with alcohol-free versions.

Updated October 31, 2026

The butler brings in the wassail bowl. Drawing by Randolph Caldecott for Washington Irving’s Old Christmas (London: Macmillan, 1876), p. 132. Wellcome Collection copy.

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A footed pewter bowl of cloudy brown wassail holds two split roasted apples, soaked toast, lemon peel and cinnamon under a dusting of nutmeg, with a pewter ladle and two pewter beakers on a pine table.

Hot Drinks · 55 min total

Wassail Bowl, Hot Ale and Sherry with Roasted Apples

Hot ale with sherry, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and lemon, served with roasted apples and toast floating in the bowl: the Christmas wassail as printed in 1869.

A clear glass bowl of ruby-brown spiced port with a roasted clove-studded lemon, a cinnamon stick and allspice berries, a silver spoon resting in it and a small stemmed glass of port beside it on cream linen against a terracotta wall.

Hot Drinks · 1 hr 5 min total

Bishop, Hot Spiced Port with a Roasted Lemon

Hot port with a roasted clove-studded lemon, boiled-down spices, fresh lemon and nutmeg: the Oxford bishop of 1847 and the smoking bishop of A Christmas Carol.

A cream earthenware jug of deep purple-red negus with three lemon slices stands with its lid and two handled glass cups, one filled and dusted with nutmeg, on pale oak.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 30 min total

Alcohol-Free Negus, Hot Grape and Blackcurrant with Lemon

Hot red grape and blackcurrant juice poured into a covered jug of lemon sugar, sliced lemons and a little spice, then grated over with nutmeg: negus by the 1847 Oxford method, without the port.

What did people drink at Christmas in the past?

Mostly hot drinks from a shared bowl or jug: wassail and lambswool in the English country house, punch, mulled wine and smoking bishop in the Victorian parlor, eggnog and the Tom and Jerry at the American bar. Children had negus, well watered, and lemonade.

The oldest of them is the wassail bowl. Robert Herrick’s of 1648 held ale with sugar, nutmeg and ginger, later accounts float roasted apples and toast in it, and it went round between Christmas and Twelfth Night. Sir Kenelm Digby’s cookbook of 1669 made a rich posset of cream and sack for the same season.

The Victorians served their Christmas hot. When the Ghost of Christmas Present appears in A Christmas Carol (1843), the room holds “seething bowls of punch,” and on Christmas morning Scrooge promises Bob Cratchit “a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop,” port poured over a roasted lemon stuck with cloves, as Oxford printed it in 1847. Mrs. Beeton mixed her hot punch of rum and brandy with boiling water. In the workhouse, the one drink of the year was a pint of stout with dinner; in the street, the poor bought hot elder wine at a halfpenny a glass.

Across the Atlantic, Jerry Thomas’s bar book of 1862 printed the eggnog and the Tom and Jerry, and further east a Polish Christmas Eve supper ended with prune kompot.

Most of these drinks have an alcohol-free version here, made from the original recipe: spiced apple juice in the wassail bowl, grape juice in the bishop and the negus, hot milk under the Tom and Jerry batter.

We will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

What is wassail and how was it made?

A hot bowl of ale, sugar and spices with roasted apples floating in it, passed round from Christmas to Twelfth Night. Lambswool is the same drink by another name.

A wide earthenware bowl of hot brown ale with a pale, soft layer of apple pulp on top, beside two roasted apples with split skins and two mugs.

Tudor & Elizabethan · Hot Drinks · 55 min total

Lambswool, Hot Spiced Ale with Roasted Apples

Strong hot ale with the soft pulp of roasted apples, nutmeg, ginger and raw sugar beaten in: the Elizabethan winter drink, from the 1869 recipe.

A maple bowl of cloudy golden-brown apple juice holds two split roasted apples, soaked toast, cinnamon and lemon peel, with a wooden ladle and a wooden cup on a weathered table in a winter orchard.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 55 min total

Alcohol-Free Wassail, Hot Spiced Apple Juice with Roasted Apples

Cloudy apple juice heated with cinnamon, ginger, lemon and nutmeg, with roasted apples and toast floating in the bowl: our modern alcohol-free take on the 1869 wassail.

A glass jug and two smooth-sided tumblers of softly cloudy gold apple water stand beside three wrinkled, split baked apples in a brown oval dish on a pine table before a green dresser.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 2 hr 5 min total

Baked-Apple Water with Ginger and Lemon Peel

Boiling water poured over baked apples, a pear, grated ginger and lemon peel, then pressed through a sieve: an alcohol-free Victorian drink from 1869.

What did Victorians drink at Christmas?

Punch, mulled wine, negus and smoking bishop, nearly all of them hot. Each has an alcohol-free partner here for children and drivers.

The whole Victorian Christmas, from the parlor punch bowl to the street, is in Victorian Christmas Drinks, from Punch to Elder Wine.

A white bowl of dark purple spiced grape juice with a browned, clove-studded lemon partly sunk in it, the tip of a cinnamon stick and a long steel spoon, beside a small handled glass cup on old oak before a slate-blue wall.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 1 hr 5 min total

Alcohol-Free Bishop, Spiced Grape Juice with a Roasted Lemon

Hot red grape juice with a roasted clove-studded lemon, boiled-down spices, fresh lemon and nutmeg: the 1847 Oxford bishop made without the port.

A white china jug of ruby-red negus with four lemon slices stands with its lid, a whole nutmeg and four stemmed glasses on a pewter tray over white damask.

Hot Drinks · 30 min total

Port Wine Negus, Hot Port with Lemon and Nutmeg

A bottle of hot ruby port poured into a covered jug of lemon sugar, sliced lemons, a little spice and a quart of boiling water, then grated over with nutmeg: negus as Oxford made it in 1847.

Two diamond-patterned glass punch cups of dark ruby mulled wine stand with a lidded pewter jug and a plate of four toast strips on white linen beside a snowy window.

Hot Drinks · 25 min total

Victorian Mulled Wine, Claret with a Glass of Port

Cloves, cinnamon, lemon peel and sugar boiled in water, then a pint of claret and a glass of port, heated, never boiled: mulled wine from an 1869 London book.

A broad white china bowl with a blue floral border, two-thirds full of clear amber-brown punch flecked with nutmeg, with a silver ladle, beside three handled pressed-glass cups, two of them filled, and half a squeezed lemon on a saucer, on a polished wooden side table against cream paneling.

Punches & Cups · 10 min total

Mrs. Beeton’s Hot Punch, Rum and Brandy with Lemon

Equal parts rum and brandy, sugar rubbed on a lemon, nutmeg and a pint of boiling water, mixed in a punchbowl: the hot punch of Mrs. Beeton’s 1861 book.

What is smoking bishop?

Hot spiced port poured over a lemon stuck with cloves and roasted by the fire, served steaming from a bowl. Oxford Night Caps printed it that way in 1847, four years after Scrooge promised Bob Cratchit “a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop.” Dickens gave no recipe, and “smoking” meant hot enough to steam.

The bowl Scrooge promised, and the oranges Swift put in it, are in What Was Smoking Bishop, the Drink in A Christmas Carol?.

What did the Victorian poor drink at Christmas?

In the workhouse, a single pint of beer or stout with the Christmas dinner, the one day of the year, sickness apart, when it was allowed, and only where the Guardians agreed. Outside the walls, the London poor bought hot elder wine in the street at a halfpenny a glass, about 25p today by UK consumer prices (Bank of England), and the temperance societies offered them tea.

The workhouse dinner and the street urn are in A Pint of Stout on Christmas Day: What the Victorian Poor Drank.

What did Victorians drink at Christmas without alcohol?

Tea at the tea table and lemonade later in the evening, at children’s parties, and tea again at the temperance societies’ Christmas festivals. An 1869 book of cups poured boiling water over baked apples, ginger and lemon peel. Our alcohol-free bishop, negus and wassail keep the period method with grape or apple juice in place of the wine and ale.

What the children drank, negus included, is in What Did Victorian Children Drink at Christmas?.

How was eggnog first made?

Jerry Thomas’s 1862 version shakes one egg, sugar, Cognac and rum with milk and ice. His Tom and Jerry stirs a spoonful of spiced egg batter into brandy and boiling water.

A heavy clear tumbler of pale cream-yellow eggnog with crushed ice, fine froth and nutmeg stands beside a tin shaker on a mahogany bar with decanters behind.

Cocktails & Mixed Drinks · 5 min total

Egg Nogg, the 1862 Bar Eggnog

One egg, a wine-glass of Cognac, half as much St. Croix rum, sugar and a third of a tumbler of milk, shaken with shaved ice and topped with nutmeg: Jerry Thomas’s eggnog of 1862.

A clear handled mug of pale creamy Tom and Jerry with nutmeg foam stands beside egg batter, a whole nutmeg and grater on dark walnut against a teal wall.

Hot Drinks · 15 min total

Tom and Jerry, the 1862 Egg-Batter Hot Drink

A spoonful of spiced egg batter, a wine-glass of brandy and boiling water, with nutmeg grated on top: the Tom and Jerry as Jerry Thomas’s 1862 bar book dealt it out.

A white mug of pale foamy hot milk and egg batter dusted with nutmeg sits beside a copper milk pan and whole nutmeg on pine against an ochre wall.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 20 min total

Alcohol-Free Tom and Jerry, the Batter in Hot Milk

The spiced egg batter of the 1862 Tom and Jerry, beaten light and stirred into milk just off the boil, with nutmeg on top: the hot Christmas drink without the brandy.

A clear tumbler of dark amber hot rum holds melting butter, cloves and allspice beside a butter dish on dark oak against a brick-red wall.

Hot Drinks · 5 min total

Hot Spiced Rum with Butter, from 1862

A teaspoon of sugar, a wine-glass of Jamaica rum, allspice and cloves, and a piece of butter the size of half a chestnut, filled up with hot water: Jerry Thomas’s hot spiced rum of 1862.

A brown stoneware mug of cloudy golden cider with melting butter stands beside a steel pan, red apple, cloves and allspice on pale oak against sage green.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 7 min total

Alcohol-Free Hot Buttered Cider with Allspice and Cloves

Jerry Thomas’s 1862 hot spiced rum without the rum: sweet apple cider heated with whole allspice and cloves, finished with a piece of butter melting on top.

What are good old Christmas drinks without alcohol?

Spiced apple, hot grape and blackcurrant, cranberry syrup for tea and a Polish prune kompot. Every drink in this group is alcohol-free.

Clear dark amber-brown prune kompot fills a plain glass jug and two straight glasses with prunes and teaspoons on a white tablecloth, beside a white plate of dry prunes and a cinnamon stick, with a lit white candle and snowy dark window behind.

Always alcohol-free

35 min total

Prune Kompot for a Polish Christmas Eve, from 1913

Dried plums cooked soft with sugar and cinnamon: the prune kompot of a 1913 Polish-Lithuanian cookbook, served then as a dessert and poured today as a drink at Christmas Eve supper.

A corked bottle of clear cranberry-red syrup, a white teacup and saucer of deep red tea with a teaspoon, a white teapot and a bowl of whole cranberries sit on a linen runner over dark polished wood, with a lamp and snowy window behind.

Always alcohol-free

Shrubs, Syrups & Cordials · 3 hr 25 min total

Sok Żurawinowy, Cranberry Syrup for Tea from 1885

Whole cranberries boiled until they burst, the juice left to clear and then cooked with sugar into a thin, bright syrup for a glass of hot tea: the sok żurawinowy of Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa’s Warsaw household book of 1885.

A white china bowl of pale golden tea punch holds lemon rounds and a ladle beside a white teapot and cup on pale wood against a terracotta wall.

Alcohol-free version

Punches & Cups · 15 min total

Alcohol-Free Tea Punch, Green Tea, Lemon and Sugar

The green tea, lump sugar rubbed on lemon peel and lemon juice of Jerry Thomas’s 1862 tea punch, with hot water in place of the brandy and rum, served from a warm bowl.

Three short-stemmed glasses hold pale yellow-green whey beneath cream, with one golden cap, beside two oranges and a lemon on wood against an olive wall.

Alcohol-free version

25 min total

Alcohol-Free Whipt Syllabub over Lemon Whey

Cream whisked with orange and lemon juice, grated lemon peel and fine sugar, spooned over sweetened lemon whey, which Hannah Glasse offered in 1747 in place of the wine.

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