Recipes to warm your heart.
As the days get shorter and winter slowly creeps closer, being under lock and key is not so bad. Lockdown has made many of us more aware of – and grateful for – life’s little luxuries.
If your red wine supplies are looking a little low, here are four simple cocktails easy enough to make at home from items we’re pretty sure you have at the back of your pantry too. Go on. Treat yourself.
Brave and bold
Ingredients
45 ml Bannerman’s Finest Scotch whisky
2 slices of fresh ginger
7.5 ml fresh lemon juice
10 ml honey
1 cinnamon Stick
60 ml boiling water
3 cloves or 2 star anise (depending on what you have in your grocery cupboard)
Method
Place all the ingredients into a mug and stir. Drop a fresh slice of orange into the glass for an extra dose of vitamin C.

Winter-spiced Old Fashioned
Ingredients
50 ml buffalo trace
15 ml winter spiced syrup*
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters
* Mix one part granulated sugar to two parts water and infuse with star anise, cinnamon, all spice and nutmeg.
Method
Stir over ice for slow dilution and garnish with orange peels.

Krakacinno
Ingredients
30 ml Kraken rum
15 ml Irish crème liqueur
150 ml hot coffee
Whipped cream
Method
Stir all the ingredients together and top with a dollop of whipped cream.

Garden Toddy (non-alcoholic)
Ingredients
50 ml Seedlip Garden
20 ml fresh lemon juice
20 ml Cloudy apple juice
10 ml lemon verbena syrup*
* Four cups of caster sugar, 2 cups of water and a handful of lemon verbena. Add lemon verbena and water and bring to the boil. Infuse for 30 minutes and add caster sugar. Leave in the fridge for 24 hours and fine strain.
Method
Add all the ingredients to a glass mug, stir and enjoy. Garnish with a lemon verbena leaf.

Lead image: Unsplash.