Hot Spiced Cider
Hot Spiced Cider for eight is 1.2 litres of cloudy apple juice warmed for 20 minutes, never boiled, with two cinnamon sticks, six cloves, two star anise, a few strips of orange peel and 50ml of maple syrup. Served as it is, 150ml a mug, it is alcohol-free. For a spiked mug, add 50ml of bourbon or dark rum at the pour, about 2.0 UK units. The name follows American use, where, Dictionary.com says, apple cider is an unfiltered juice and the fermented drink is hard cider. In Britain cider is the alcoholic drink, so the recipe says cloudy apple juice: pressed, unfiltered and with no alcohol at all. One pot serves the whole gathering. Drivers and children drink the base, and anyone who wants a stronger mug adds the spirit to their own. In our experience adding it at the pour also keeps its aroma, which a pot held hot for hours would slowly lose.
Glassware: Heatproof Mug
Garnish:
Ingredients
1.2 litres
Pressed and unfiltered, with no alcohol. It keeps the apple’s body and some sharpness; clear juice from concentrate tastes of sugar more than fruit once it is warm.
2
Whole sticks. Ground cinnamon clouds the pot and keeps releasing long after it has given enough.
6
Six is enough for 1.2 litres. Clove turns bitter under a boil, which is the main reason to keep the heat low.
A few strips
Strips pared without the white pith. The oil lifts the spice; the pith would add bitterness over a long evening.
50ml
Real maple syrup, 50ml across the pot. The apple juice is already sweet, so the maple is there for its flavour as much as its sugar.
50ml per mug
At our working 40% ABV, added to each mug at the pour, never to the pot. Bourbon gives caramel and vanilla; dark rum gives treacle and burnt sugar. Leave it out and the mug is alcohol-free.
Instructions
Put the cloudy apple juice, cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, orange peel and maple syrup in a large pan.
Warm over a low heat for 20 minutes, with the surface barely moving. Do not let it boil.
Turn the heat to its lowest setting to keep it warm.
Ladle 150ml into each warmed mug.
For a spiked mug, add 50ml of bourbon or dark rum at the pour. Otherwise serve it as it is.
Our version
Our own hot serve for eight: 1.2 litres of cloudy apple juice warmed with whole spices, orange peel and 50ml of maple syrup, alcohol-free, with 50ml of bourbon or dark rum added to a mug only on request. We have found no published original.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Keep it under a simmer. Twenty minutes with the surface barely moving draws out the spice. A boil reduces the juice toward jam and pulls bitterness from the cloves, and neither can be undone. Use whole spices. Ground cinnamon and clove cloud the juice and keep extracting, so by the second hour the pot tastes bitter. Whole spices give up their flavour and then stop; lift them out if the pot is staying on all night. Taste the base before any spirit goes near it, because for some guests it is the finished drink. If it tastes flat, it usually wants acidity rather than sugar: a squeeze of lemon lifts it.
Behind the Hot Spiced Cider
Flavour Profile
One Pot for Everyone
We wrote this one ourselves, for Bonfire Night and cold evenings outdoors. It is not a wassail and has no long history of its own: just a practical design for a mixed crowd.
The base is alcohol-free and complete. The spirit is added by the mug, so the same pot serves drivers, children and drinkers, and nobody has to make a second recipe or explain which jug is which.
Cider, Juice and the Name
Dictionary.com defines apple cider as an unfiltered juice, with the fermented drink called hard cider. British shops sell the same thing as cloudy apple juice, and in Britain the word cider means the alcoholic drink.
We keep the familiar name and write the ingredient plainly. Cloudy juice is the right choice either way: it carries more apple and more acidity than clear juice from concentrate, which tastes mostly of sugar once it is warm.
Low Heat, Whole Spice
Twenty minutes with the surface barely moving is enough to pull cinnamon, clove, star anise and orange peel into the juice. A boil reduces it and concentrates the sugar, and clove turns harsh under sustained heat.
Whole spices stop giving once they have given. Ground spice keeps extracting, clouds the pot and turns it bitter by the second hour. If the pot is staying on all night, lift the spices out after the first hour.
Three Hot Pans Compared
Hot Spiced Cider beside our Wassail and Mulled Wine; all three are our recipes and the units are our calculation
Base
- Hot Spiced Cider
- 1.2 litres cloudy apple juice
- Wassail
- 1 litre cloudy apple juice, 500ml dry cider
- Mulled Wine
- 750ml red wine, 100ml orange juice
Spirit
- Hot Spiced Cider
- 50ml bourbon or dark rum per mug, optional
- Wassail
- 100ml brandy or calvados, optional
- Mulled Wine
- 150ml brandy
Sweetener
- Hot Spiced Cider
- 50ml maple syrup
- Wassail
- Brown sugar to taste
- Mulled Wine
- 75ml honey
Serves
- Hot Spiced Cider
- Eight
- Wassail
- Eight to ten
- Mulled Wine
- Six to eight
Alcohol-free as written
- Hot Spiced Cider
- Yes, unspiked
- Wassail
- Only with juice in place of the cider
- Mulled Wine
- No
UK units per cup
- Hot Spiced Cider
- None unspiked; about 2.0 spiked
- Wassail
- About 0.7 to 0.8
- Mulled Wine
- About 2.0 to 2.6
| Element | Hot Spiced Cider | Wassail | Mulled Wine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | 1.2 litres cloudy apple juice | 1 litre cloudy apple juice, 500ml dry cider | 750ml red wine, 100ml orange juice |
| Spirit | 50ml bourbon or dark rum per mug, optional | 100ml brandy or calvados, optional | 150ml brandy |
| Sweetener | 50ml maple syrup | Brown sugar to taste | 75ml honey |
| Serves | Eight | Eight to ten | Six to eight |
| Alcohol-free as written | Yes, unspiked | Only with juice in place of the cider | No |
| UK units per cup | None unspiked; about 2.0 spiked | About 0.7 to 0.8 | About 2.0 to 2.6 |
Spirit at the Pour
In our experience the base holds on low heat for hours without harm. Spirit does not: held hot, its alcohol and aroma evaporate steadily. Poured into the mug, 50ml of bourbon or dark rum arrives with its nose intact and cools a too-hot mug to drinking temperature.
We have not measured how much alcohol warming removes, so we count a mug with 50ml of spirit at about two units, the same as a cold drink.
How to Serve It
Warm the mugs with hot water first, ladle 150ml of the base into each and add the spirit last, if at all. Outdoors, use sturdy mugs or paper cups rather than glass, and cover the pan between rounds to keep out ash.
Give the pot its own ladle and a label saying it has no alcohol in it, and keep it out of reach of small children: a hot drink can scald well after it has left the stove.
For apple and cider in one pan, make Wassail; for red wine and brandy, Mulled Wine.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Whiskey (Bourbon)Under the US standard 27 CFR 5.143, bourbon is an American whiskey whose mash is at least 51% corn, matured in fresh charred oak barrels and bottled at 40% ABV or higher, the figure our recipes use. The fresh charred wood gives it its vanilla, caramel and colour, and the corn gives a rounder, sweeter spirit than rye. It is the base of 26 of our recipes, more than any other whiskey.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hot Spiced Cider alcohol-free?
Why is it made with apple juice rather than cider?
Can I make it with real cider?
Bourbon or dark rum?
Why add the spirit to each mug instead of the pot?
Why must it not boil?
How much alcohol is in a spiked mug?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- Dictionary.com, “cider” (dictionary entry (Collins, Random House): cider in British English an alcoholic drink from fermented apple juice, called hard cider in the US; apple cider an unfiltered juice, sweet cider unfermented).
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Mulled Wine
Mulled wine for six to eight is 750ml of red wine, 150ml of brandy, 100ml of fresh orange juice and 75ml of honey, warmed in a large pan with two cinnamon sticks, six cloves, two star anise and a few wide strips of citrus peel. It is held at a bare steam for fifteen to twenty minutes and never boiled. About 2.0 to 2.6 UK units a cup. Gentle heat lifts the spice into the room and takes the edge off the wine. A boil drives off alcohol and pulls bitter, stewed flavours from the clove and cinnamon, so the surface should shiver and never bubble. The brandy keeps the drink from tasting thin once the heat has softened the wine. Spiced, sweetened wine is very old. The Roman cookery collection that carries the name of Apicius opens with a spiced wine, the conditum paradoxum, and the Oxford Companion says mulled-style drinks go back to early medieval times under names such as hippocras. This is a modern British pan: brandy, honey and fresh orange.
Wassail
Wassail is a hot bowl for eight to ten: a litre of cloudy apple juice and 500ml of dry cider, warmed with two cinnamon sticks, a teaspoon of ground ginger and an orange studded with six cloves, held below a simmer for 20 minutes, never boiled, and sweetened with brown sugar to taste. Add 100ml of brandy or calvados off the heat if you want it stronger. With a 5% cider and the brandy, a cup carries about 0.7 to 0.8 UK units. The name was a greeting before it was a drink. Dictionary.com gives it as Middle English was-hail, from was, be, and hail, in good health, replacing the Old English wæs hāl. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British History, in the translation on Project Gutenberg, King Vortigern is told to answer the toast “wacht heil” with “Drinc heil”. Ours is the cider version, soft and lightly spiced and gentle enough for a second cup. Made with apple juice alone, it has no alcohol at all.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026