Hot Toddy Day

What the day is

Hot Toddy Day is observed on January 11. A toddy is spirit, hot water, something sweet and usually lemon, and it has been treated as half drink and half medicine for as long as it has existed.

Origin and background

The word traveled further than the drink. It comes from a term in India for the fermented sap of the toddy palm, and entered English during the East India Company period, drifting from that palm wine to mean a hot spirit-and-water mixture in Britain by the eighteenth century. Scotland took to it enthusiastically, which is why whisky is the default spirit.

The medicinal reputation deserves an honest audit, because most of it is misplaced. Alcohol does nothing against a viral infection. It disrupts sleep architecture, so a nightcap buys drowsiness at the cost of a worse night's rest, and it is mildly dehydrating when fluids are what you want. The warm feeling it produces is blood moving to the skin, which means losing heat rather than gaining it.

The rest of the glass does better. Warm fluid and steam genuinely soothe a sore throat and loosen congestion for a while. Honey has real evidence behind it as a cough suppressant, performing better than placebo and comparably to some over-the-counter preparations in children, and it is now commonly recommended ahead of them. Honey must never be given to infants under one year old, because of the risk of botulism.

So the useful version of the remedy is the toddy with the whisky left out: hot water, honey, lemon. It is a genuinely good thing to drink when ill, and the alcohol is the one ingredient working against you.

How to take part

• Use hot water rather than boiling, which scalds the honey and the lemon.
• Make it without the spirit if you are actually unwell.
• Use decent honey and enough of it. That is the working ingredient.
• Add a strip of lemon peel as well as the juice, since the oils are in the peel.
• Never give honey to a baby under one year.
• Drink responsibly, and not at all alongside cold medicines.