Drinks by theme

Hot Winter Drinks From Old Recipe Books

Historic hot winter drinks: posset, caudle, wassail, lambswool, negus, mulled wine, hot toddy and saloop, with alcohol-free versions of most.

Updated October 28, 2026

Port wine negus in a white china jug with lemon slices, and small stemmed glasses on a white cloth.

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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.

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 small two-handled earthenware cup of warm milky posset with soft curds on the surface and a dusting of cinnamon, beside a jug of milk and a bottle of ale.

Medieval · Hot Drinks · 15 min total

Posset Ale, Hot Milk Curdled with Ale

Very hot milk poured onto cold ale and left to set into soft curds in a warm whey, sweetened with honey and strewn with cinnamon and ginger.

What did people drink to keep warm in winter?

Hot ale, wine and milk, spiced and sweetened, and often thickened with egg or roasted apple. Before central heating, the posset, the caudle, the wassail bowl and the mulled wine pan were how a household kept warm from November to Twelfth Night.

The oldest are milk and ale drinks. A posset was hot milk curdled with ale, wine or later treacle, and Sir Kenelm Digby’s cookbook of 1669 made a rich one with cream and sack. A caudle thickened warm ale or wine with egg yolks, and was allowed to the sick by a physician of 1542.

Wassail began as a toast, from an old greeting meaning “be healthy,” and gave its name to the bowl. Robert Herrick’s wassail of 1648 held ale with sugar, nutmeg and ginger; later accounts float roasted apples and toast in it, and the same mixture went by the name lambswool. Negus, port and hot water with lemon and nutmeg, was in print by 1745 and handed round at balls for a century after.

The Victorians served almost all their Christmas drinks hot. Dickens filled a room with “seething bowls of punch,” Oxford printed smoking bishop in 1847, and in the street, London’s poor bought hot elder wine by the halfpenny glass. Across the Atlantic, Jerry Thomas’s bar book of 1862 gave the hot toddy and the Tom and Jerry, and the soda fountain sold hot ginger in winter.

Each recipe below gives its period source. Most of the drinks with alcohol have an alcohol-free version close by, and the last section lists the hot drinks without alcohol.

Seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

What is a posset drink?

Hot milk or cream curdled with ale, wine or treacle, and drunk warm, curds and all. The caudle is its cousin, thickened with egg yolks instead.

A shallow cream earthenware bowl of pale cinnamon-dusted sack posset sits on dark oak beside a filled cup and an empty cup with silver spoons, a cinnamon stick, two nutmegs and a stemmed glass of amber sherry, with a hearth fire at left.

Hot Drinks · 25 min total

Sack Posset, Sir Kenelm Digby’s Cream and Sack from 1669

Hot cream thickened with egg and poured from a height onto boiling sweet sherry with sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon, then eaten with a spoon: the sack posset of Sir Kenelm Digby’s 1669 cookbook.

A short-stemmed glass of translucent dark amber whey on a white saucer, beside a fine sieve of pale curd resting on a cream enamel saucepan, and three squares of dark sticky parkin on a plate, against a dark red wall.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 10 min total

Treacle Posset, Hot Milk Turned with Black Treacle

Boiling milk turned with black treacle and strained into a glass: a hot, dark, sweet whey from the sick-room lessons of an 1877 London cookery school.

A two-handled green-glazed earthenware cup of glossy golden-brown ale caudle beside a clay jug of dark ale and a wooden bowl with two egg yolks on dark oak before limewashed stone.

Medieval · Hot Drinks · 20 min total

Ale Caudle, Warm Ale Thickened with Egg Yolks

Malty ale stirred over low heat with beaten egg yolks until it thickens like a thin custard: the medieval caudle, made safe with a thermometer.

Pale yellow-green lemon whey in a plain glass beside a saucepan holding white curds and a lemon half on dark slate against a sage-green wall.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 12 min total

Lemon Whey, Hot Milk Turned with Lemon Juice

Boiling milk turned with lemon juice, the clear whey poured off the curd and thinned with hot water and a little sugar: the alcohol-free sickroom whey from Maria Rundell’s 1806 cookbook.

Two cream earthenware jugs and two cups of pale golden egg-and-wine drink with fine white froth on an oak table, beside one lemon half, white sugar lumps and a whole nutmeg on a tin grater, against dark green paneling.

Hot Drinks · 20 min total

Rum Booze, Oxford’s 1847 Egg Posset of Hot White Wine

White wine boiled with cinnamon and lemon-rubbed sugar, poured onto beaten egg yolks with nutmeg and tossed between two jugs to a froth: the Rum Booze of Oxford Night Caps, 1847, which has no rum in it.

What is wassail made of?

Hot ale, sugar, nutmeg and ginger with roasted apples, sometimes with sherry or wine. Lambswool is the same drink by another name, and our alcohol-free wassail uses apple juice.

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 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 cream earthenware mug of thick pale milk flecked with apple pulp and nutmeg, beside a matching jug, two split roasted apples on a dish and a few hazelnuts on a dark slate hearth.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 55 min total

Lambswool with Milk, Roasted Apples Beaten into Hot Milk

The soft pulp of roasted apples beaten into hot milk with nutmeg, ginger and sugar: the milk lambswool of an Irish Halloween, from a 1784 letter.

What is negus?

Port or sherry with hot water, sugar, lemon and nutmeg, served warm from a jug at balls and parties. Mulled wine and bishop are its stronger relations.

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.

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 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 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.

Two brown-glazed earthenware mugs of deep reddish-amber cider and a matching brown earthenware pitcher stand on a gray slate hearth before an unlit red-brick fireplace with an iron fire grate.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 25 min total

Mulled Sweet Cider with Nutmeg and Cloves

Sweet apple cider simmered for fifteen minutes with nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and brown sugar, never boiled: an alcohol-free mulled cider from a 1919 temperance drinks book.

What hot drinks have no alcohol?

Saloop, hot spiced cider and apple, the soda fountain’s hot ginger, and alcohol-free versions of the bar’s Tom and Jerry and hot buttered drinks. The bar’s own hot toddy and Tom and Jerry are further down the page.

A wide, plain cream-glazed earthenware basin of hot, opaque ivory saloop with a smooth surface, on a gray-painted kitchen table beside a small milk pan and a wooden spoon.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 10 min total

Saloop with Milk

Hot milk poured onto a smooth paste of arrowroot and sugar and stirred until lightly thick: the milk saloop of an 1821 vegetarian cookbook that also renounced drink.

A brown-glazed earthenware basin with a cream inside, holding hot, nearly clear, glossy saloop with a thin strip of lemon peel, on a slate slab by a stone window beside a lemon with a strip pared from it.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 8 min total

Clear Saloop with Lemon Peel

Boiling water stirred onto arrowroot with a strip of lemon peel until clear and lightly thick, then sweetened: the 1812 cookery-book saloop, made without its wine.

A heavy white china mug of clear amber hot ginger on a marble soda counter beside two square crackers, with a mirrored back bar behind.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 35 min total

Hot Ginger, the Soda Fountain’s Winter Drink

A strong ginger syrup drawn into a mug and filled with hot water, no fizz at all: the soda fountain’s Hot Ginger, from Saxe’s 1894 guide for dispensers.

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 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.

The full list