The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails Definition of The toddy

The toddy is a simple drink combining distilled spirits, sugar, and hot or cold water. Its origin is murky, but it does not appear to be linked to the South Asian palm wine of the same name and can best be understood as a simplification of punch, without the often hard-to-get citrus. See punch. It first appears in print in England in 1741 and was already a popular drink in British America in 1750. It was in Scotland, however, where one newspaper noted that “every household has its toddy gods,” that the drink and its preparation became an institution, particularly in the hot version.

Toddies are typically composed by adding boiling water to a warmed tumbler or larger vessel that contains the liquor and sugar and stirring until the sugar has dissolved. (Nutmeg, freshly scraped over the finished drink, is a traditional but optional fillip.) If it is composed in larger quantities, portions might be transferred to individual tumblers with a ladle or “toddy lifter,” a bulb-shaped glass or crystal device with a long neck and openings at each end that acts much like a pipette. The toddy maker submerges its bulbous end in prepared toddy, allows its chamber to fill with the hot drink, then seals the top aperture with a thumb and carefully transfers a roughly uniform dose to individual tumblers. To assure that the individual hot toddy is indeed hot rather than merely warm when served, American bartender Jeffery Morgenthaler advises using a “bartender’s bain-marie,” a shaker tin containing the ingredients nestled inside a larger tin partly filled with hot water, before finishing with piping-hot water.

Although most drinkers today know them as “hot” toddies, cold toddies were at one point quite common, both as toddies and under another name: sling. See sling. Until the widespread use of the muddler, a similar wooden, metal, or sometimes glass rod known as a “toddy stick” was used to crush lumps of sugar in the cold toddy (or sling, julep, or cocktail) and to stir the resulting concoction. Add mint to that cold drink and you have a julep; with bitters, it’s a Jefferson-era Cock-Tail. See julep and Cock-Tail. Squeeze a piece of lemon peel over the hot toddy and drop it in the tumbler and you have a skin on your hands. In Ireland, the local product used for the spirit in the combination along with a clove-studded slice of lemon yields a chest-warming soother called a “Hot Whisky.” See Hot Whisky.

Because of the dilution involved, and as a vestige of the hot toddy’s therapeutic reputation for flagging constitutions, strongly flavored spirits are preferred in constructing the drink. Nineteenth-century papers in Scotland and England advertised “toddy whisky”—that is, robust malt whisky ideally suited for toddy making (in America, before the 1890s virtually the only way scotch whisky was consumed was in “Hot Scotches,” as scotch-whisky toddies were called). Pot-stilled whisky, brandy, and rum (especially Jamaican rum) are toddy stalwarts of ancient renown. Malty genever makes a respectable toddy, while a hot gin toddy (known occasionally as a “Cockroach”) has enjoyed some traction in America. Although vodka toddies exist as a theoretical possibility, the relative neutrality of the spirit plays to the strengths of neither the vodka nor the toddy.

The toddy has lent itself to endless other variations over the centuries. Drinkers who may favor one spirit over others or who feel that the drink would be improved adding or substituting ingredients, such as cider for the water, have given rise to national, regional, and idiosyncratic expressions. That this polymorphous concoction remains in circulation under a roster of assumed names and with unorthodox constituents is testament to its enduring popularity. The bare-fisted tripartite toddy exists today alongside modern interpretations that take the concept well beyond its original ingredients to include fruit juices, teas, and spices arguably more at home in juleps and punch. In the eastern United States, especially in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and adjacent areas, a specimen known as Apple Toddy, which includes roasted apple and whisky, rum, or brandy, has been enjoyed for over two hundred years. Twenty-first-century examples may include mezcal or other strongly flavored spirits or even liqueurs such as rock and rye, with sweetness adjusted to taste.

Recipe (Scotch Whisky Toddy): Rinse an earthenware mug with boiling water. Add 1 barspoon (5 ml) demerara sugar and a swatch of thin-cut lemon peel. Add 30 ml boiling water and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add 60 ml single malt scotch and finish with another 30 ml boiling water.

The toddy

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