Burns Night drinks: the whisky, the toasts and the cocktails

A Burns supper runs to an order, and the drinks follow it. Guests arrive to a dram or a cocktail, the haggis is piped in and toasted, and the speeches after the meal each end with glasses raised. Pour for those moments and the evening runs itself.

Units are worked out at typical strengths: 40% ABV for whisky and other spirits, 11 to 12% for sparkling wine, and the usual strength of each liqueur and vermouth. Check your own bottles.

Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire, and died in 1796. His friends held the first supper in his memory at Burns Cottage on 21 July 1801, the fifth anniversary of his death, by Wikipedia’s account, a secondary source. The clubs that followed moved it to his birthday.

Guests are piped in, or simply arrive, and the host welcomes them. Before the food, someone says the Selkirk Grace: “Some hae meat and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it, but we hae meat, and we can eat, sae let the Lord be thankit.” It carries Burns’s name but is older than him. It was known in the seventeenth century as the Galloway Grace, and took the Selkirk name after Burns spoke it at the Earl of Selkirk’s table.

The soup comes first, usually cock-a-leekie or Scotch broth. No toast goes with it, so put water on the table and keep the whisky back.

Then the haggis is piped in. The speaker recites Address to a Haggis, cuts the haggis open partway through and ends on “Gie her a Haggis”. The company stands and raises a glass to the haggis. This is the first whisky of the formal evening, so every glass should be poured before the piper starts.

Haggis, neeps and tatties follow, then a pudding such as cranachan or clootie dumpling, then cheese and coffee.

The speeches come after the meal. The Immortal Memory is the main one, a talk on Burns’s life or work that ends in a toast to his memory. The Toast to the Lassies follows, a light speech that ends with the men toasting the women. A woman gives the reply, turns the jokes back on the men and often ends with a toast of her own. Songs and poems fill the gaps, and the night closes with everyone standing, hands joined, for Auld Lang Syne.

That makes four toasts after the grace: the haggis, the Immortal Memory, the Lassies and the reply. They are sips, not measures. One dram poured before the haggis and topped up once before the speeches covers all four.

For the toasts, choose one Scotch you would drink neat and pour it all evening. A blended Scotch or a Speyside single malt suits a mixed table. An Islay malt suits a table that already likes smoke, and it stands up to the pepper in the haggis. A sherried malt sets sweetness against the same spice.

Serve it at room temperature in a small tulip glass such as a Glencairn glass, with a jug of water on the table. A few drops of water open a whisky up. Ice dulls the smell, and it has no part in the toasts.

Keep the special bottle for after the speeches, when the toasts are done and people can taste it properly. St Andrew’s Day drinks goes through the Scotch regions for 30 November, Scotland’s national day, which has no set order. Burns Night is the one with a script.

Serve cocktails as guests arrive, before the grace, and keep the neat Scotch for the toasts.

The Rob Roy is the Manhattan made with Scotch. Stir 60ml Scotch, 30ml sweet vermouth and two dashes of Angostura with large cubed ice for 20 to 30 seconds, strain into a chilled coupe and drop in a good cherry. Taste the Scotch beside the vermouth first. If they fight, use 15ml each of sweet and dry vermouth in place of the 30ml of sweet.

The Penicillin is the modern one, created by Sam Ross at Milk & Honey in New York in 2005, by Wikipedia’s account, a secondary source. Shake 60ml blended Scotch, 22.5ml honey syrup, 22.5ml fresh lemon juice and two or three thin slices of fresh ginger hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds. Double strain over one large cube in a rocks glass, float 7.5ml of Lagavulin 16 over the back of a bar spoon, and put candied ginger on the rim. The smoke reaches the nose first; the honey and ginger follow.

The Bobby Burns carries the name. Stir 45ml Scotch, 45ml sweet vermouth and 7.5ml Bénédictine with ice for 20 to 30 seconds, strain into a chilled coupe, and express a lemon twist over it before dropping it in. Harry Craddock printed it in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930. The name matches the poet’s, though the book itself calls it a fast mover on Saint Andrew’s Day. It suits the end of the night, after the speeches.

To make Rob Roys for a table, scale the recipe and add cold water at about a fifth of the batch, because nothing will be stirred over ice. How to batch cocktails works through the numbers.

A 700ml bottle holds twenty 35ml drams. Pour each guest one before the haggis comes in and top it up once before the speeches, and one bottle covers ten. At 25ml a dram, the same bottle covers fourteen.

A 25ml measure of 40% ABV whisky is one UK unit, so two 35ml drams come to almost three. Add a cocktail before the meal and wine with it, and the evening adds up. Keep water jugs on every table, and measure with a jigger.

A toast needs a raised glass, not whisky. Pour a soft drink for anyone not drinking, in the same glass as everyone else, so nobody sits out the haggis. The Sparkling Elderflower Lemonade, 25ml elderflower cordial and 25ml fresh lemon juice topped with 150ml sparkling water over ice, covers a whole table: mix the cordial and lemon ahead and add the water to each glass.

Late January is cold. The Hot Toddy suits the arrival or the walk home: stir 15ml honey syrup, 15ml fresh lemon juice and 120ml water just off the boil in a warmed glass, then add 60ml Scotch last and drop in a clove-studded lemon wheel and a cinnamon stick. Without the whisky it is honey, lemon and hot water.

The Rusty Nail is 45ml Scotch and 25ml Drambuie stirred over one large cube for 15 to 20 seconds, with a lemon twist expressed over it and dropped in. Drambuie is a Scotch whisky liqueur with heather honey, herbs and spice, so it keeps the night in Scotland.

The Whisky Mac is 50ml Scotch and 25ml green ginger wine in a rocks glass, stirred once, without ice or over a single cube. It needs no shaker and no fuss at the end of a long night.

Valentine’s Day follows three weeks later, and Valentine’s Day drinks covers drinks for two. Winter cocktails runs to the end of February, and the seasonal cocktails calendar has the rest of the year.