Hot Toddy

Jerry Thomas's 1862 “Whiskey Toddy” came with a small lump of ice.[1] The hot version is a different proposition: spirits, hot water and a sweetener, commonly joined by lemon in the modern whisky drink. Whisky Magazine describes it as hot, sweetened whisky and water with lemon; Difford's Guide adds cloves and a cinnamon garnish in the recipe below.[3][7]

Hot toddy recipe

Difford's Guide's Hot Scotch & Lemon pairs blended Scotch with honey syrup, rich sugar syrup and spice. The recipe below rounds its fluid-ounce measures into millilitres. It is one published version of the drink, with its own balance and method.[7]

Serves: one
Glass: a pre-warmed, heatproof toddy glass
Ice: none
Garnish: a lemon slice on the rim and a cinnamon stick

1. Pour the whisky, lemon juice and syrups into the pre-warmed glass.
2. Add the cloves, then top with the boiling water.
3. Garnish with the lemon slice and cinnamon stick.[7]

Use honey syrup and rich sugar syrup as specified, rather than neat honey and granulated sugar. Those substitutions change the recipe.

Handle the boiling water carefully and let the drink cool before sipping. Keep the serving measured, offer drinking water and food alongside it, and allow pauses rather than treating the recipe as a reason to refill.

Choosing the whisky and the formula

Blended Scotch anchors the recipe above. Scotch has a long association with the toddy, but brandy, rum and gin also belong to its history. Whisky is one branch of a broad family tree.[1][4][5]

Bartender Brandon Lockman gives the modern drink a straightforward structure: alcohol, citrus, sweetener and hot water, with honey his preferred sweetener. Jeffrey Morgenthaler takes a more elaborate route, combining bourbon, allspice dram, lemon and house ginger syrup, then warming the mixture in a bain-marie.[5]

Choose one attributed recipe and keep its measures together: these are different recipes, not interchangeable ingredient lists. For related recipes, see the whisky cocktail guide, irish coffee and the gold rush.

Even the boundary between toddy and punch depends on the reference. Whisky Magazine says that adding spices to its basic toddy makes it punch. Difford's calls its clove-and-cinnamon version a hot toddy.[3][7]

Origin: a word with a long journey

“Toddy” began far from the familiar whisky drink. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces “toddy” through the earlier forms “taddy” and “tarrie” to Hindi tari, meaning palm sap, from tar, palm tree, and ultimately Sanskrit tala-s, probably of Dravidian origin.[2]

Wonderland Kitchen's historical account quotes Sir Thomas Herbert describing toddy in 1638 as sap drawn from a toddy tree into a jar. His toddy was the older palm sap drink, rather than whisky mixed with lemon and hot water.[4]

In 1721, Allan Ramsay's poem referred to the “Todian spring”, a joke understood as whisky toddy. Ramsay identified it with Tod's Well in Edinburgh. The claim that the well gave the drink its name remains disputed, however: etymologists trace the word to Hindi.[2][3][4]

By 1761, the Online Etymology Dictionary records toddy in the sense of liquor mixed with hot water, sugar and spices. The earliest English reference remains disputed: Difford's Guide cites 1741, while Tasting Table gives 1786.[2][7][9] The word's journey and the development of a particular mixed drink are related histories, but they are not identical.

Story box: the doctor attached to the name

A doctor's name, but not his invention

The drink sense recorded by 1761 predates Robert Bentley Todd's birth in 1809. No single inventor of the hot toddy is documented in the supplied record.2 6

Modern cocktail accounts repeat the claim that physician Robert Bentley Todd invented the drink, including those discussed by Liquor.com and Tasting Table.5 9 The Dictionary of Irish Biography explicitly states that Todd “was not responsible for the so-called hot toddy”.6

The source trail is clear: the Online Etymology Dictionary, an undated web entry, supplies the word's chronology. The Dictionary of Irish Biography, an undated web edition, supplies Todd's birth date and rejects the invention claim. Liquor.com and Tasting Table record the modern telling.

Verdict badge

Legend. The claim that Dr Robert Bentley Todd invented the hot toddy fails on chronology and is expressly rejected by his biographical entry.[2][6] The supplied research establishes no primary support for his invention, and the earliest telling of the attribution remains unidentified in the sources checked.[5][9]

Story and verdict last checked: 7 November 2026.

What the older recipes reveal

The historical toddy could be cool. Wonderland Kitchen quotes J.F.D. Smyth's A Tour of the United States from 1784 describing “bombo, or toddy”: water, sugar, rum and nutmeg, “made weak, and kept cool”.[4]

After dinner, a pitcher of hot water came to the table. Guests mixed spirits, water and sugar in large foot-glasses, favouring whisky, then used small wooden ladles to transfer the mixture into wine glasses. This is the scene in Benjamin Silliman's account of his 1805 British journey, as reported by Wonderland Kitchen.[4]

Jerry Thomas's How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant's Companion captures the drink's variety in print in 1862. Its “Toddies and Slings” section includes apple toddy, brandy toddy, whiskey toddy and gin toddy, rather than one fixed whisky formula.[1]

Thomas's No. 134, “Whiskey Toddy”, calls for sugar, water, whiskey and a small lump of ice, stirred with a spoon. For hot brandy toddy, he instructs the reader to omit the ice and use boiling water. His general rule for hot toddy or hot punch puts the spirits in before the water.[1]

His “Scotch Whiskey Skin” brings together Scotch whiskey, lemon peel and boiling water. Together, these recipes show why neither lemon juice, honey nor spices should be presented as an ingredient found in every historical toddy.[1]

Where to go next

• Whisky Cocktails: The Complete Guide: explore the wider cocktail family.
• Irish Coffee: discover another warm whisky drink.
• Gold Rush: follow the whisky, honey and lemon combination.

Sources

1. Jerry Thomas, Dick & Fitzgerald. How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant's Companion, 1862, digitised edition, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QDUEAAAAYAAJ
2. Online Etymology Dictionary. toddy (n.), undated web entry. https://www.etymonline.com/word/toddy
3. Whisky Magazine. From the Editor, undated web edition. https://whiskymag.com/articles/11-from-the-editor/
4. Wonderland Kitchen. Fuzzy Math: The Hot Toddy (A History), January 2012. https://wonderlandkitchen.com/2012/01/fuzzy-math-the-hot-toddy-a-history/
5. Liquor.com. The Hot Toddy: Everything You Need to Know, web edition supplied in the fact sheet, publication revision not specified. https://www.liquor.com/articles/the-hot-toddy/
6. Royal Irish Academy, Dictionary of Irish Biography. Todd, Robert Bentley, web edition supplied in the fact sheet, revision not specified. https://www.dib.ie/index.php/biography/todd-robert-bentley-a8580
7. Difford's Guide. Hot Toddy (Hot Scotch & Lemon), web edition supplied in the fact sheet, revision not specified. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/987/hot-toddy-hot-scotch-and-lemon
8. Tasting Table. The Disputed Origin Of The Hot Toddy, web edition supplied in the fact sheet, revision not specified. https://www.tastingtable.com/1150064/the-disputed-origin-of-the-hot-toddy/

This desk-researched article uses the site's verified fact sheet TOP-A501, distinguishing the digitised Thomas recipes from historical accounts reported by later writers; the recipe is attributed to Difford's Guide, not presented as site-tested.

Last checked: November 2026