Christmas drinks: what to serve, batch and pair, hour by hour

Christmas Day is long, and no single drink suits it from the first glass to the last. Treat it as five or six moments and choose one drink for each. The table gives a drink for every moment, how much alcohol a glass carries, and whether it can be made ahead.

Hot drinks for any cold night, such as the Hot Toddy and Irish Coffee, are in winter cocktails. Seasonal cocktails covers the rest of the year.

The first drink is poured while people are still taking off their coats, so it needs to be fast and low in alcohol. Sparkling wine does both.

A Kir Royale is 10ml of crème de cassis in a chilled champagne flute, with 90ml of cold champagne poured slowly over it. It is not stirred.

A Buck’s Fizz is the Christmas morning version: 50ml of fresh orange juice topped with 100ml of champagne, two parts wine to one of juice. That makes it drier than a Mimosa, which splits the two evenly, so the wine shows. Pour the juice first and top with the wine in stages as the foam allows.

The Champagne Cocktail takes a little more ceremony. Soak a sugar cube with two dashes of Angostura, drop it into a chilled flute, add 10ml of cognac, then top with 90ml of champagne poured down the side of the glass. Express a lemon twist over it and drop it in. Never stir: the cube sweetens the glass slowly as it is drunk.

The French 75 is the strongest of the arrival drinks. Shake 30ml gin, 15ml fresh lemon juice and 15ml sugar syrup hard for 10 to 12 seconds, double strain into a chilled flute and top with 60ml of champagne. Squeeze the lemon just before you shake, and make each one to order.

A 750ml bottle of champagne gives eight Kir Royales or Champagne Cocktails at 90ml each, seven Buck’s Fizz at 100ml, or twelve French 75s at 60ml. A dry crémant or cava does the same job for less.

For a larger party, the Champagne Punch works from a bowl. Chill a base of 200ml cognac, 100ml triple sec, 200ml fresh orange juice and 50ml fresh lemon juice. Pour it over ice in a punch bowl and add two bottles of champagne at the last moment. It serves about twelve. If the party runs for hours, add the bottles in stages so the bowl stays lively.

Later in the afternoon, the Snowball is the British Christmas fixture. Shake 50ml advocaat with 10ml fresh lime juice for eight seconds, strain it over ice into a highball and top with 120ml of sharp lemonade. Shake before the lemonade goes in, or the advocaat sits under it in a layer. A tart, cloudy lemonade keeps it from cloying.

Eggnog can be made by the glass. Whisk an egg yolk with 20ml sugar syrup until pale, then dry shake it for 10 to 15 seconds with 30ml brandy, 15ml dark rum, 60ml whole milk, 30ml cream and the egg white, and shake again with ice for 10 to 12. Grate nutmeg over the top. It uses raw egg, so use British Lion eggs, which the Food Standards Agency advises are safe to eat raw. Make it to order and drink it at once. Aged eggnog is a separate tradition, with a different recipe and far more spirit; do not bottle this one.

Cocktails belong before and after the meal. At the table, wine or sherry sits better beside food, keeps the alcohol per glass low, and needs nobody behind a bar while the carving is going on.

Start with something dry and cold. Fino or manzanilla sherry, properly chilled in a white wine glass, suits smoked salmon and anything salty.

Turkey is mild, so the trimmings decide the wine. A red with soft tannins and fresh acidity, such as Pinot Noir or Beaujolais, handles cranberry sauce, stuffing and gravy without burying the meat. If the table prefers white, choose one with some body, such as an oaked Chardonnay. A glazed ham suits an off-dry Riesling, whose sweetness answers the glaze.

Christmas pudding and mince pies need a drink at least as sweet as they are, or the wine beside them tastes thin and sour. Pedro Ximénez is the classic choice: a sherry made from sun-dried grapes, dark and raisined. Port in its tawny style is the alternative, nutty from years in cask. A spare measure of PX poured over vanilla ice cream makes a pudding of its own.

Oloroso is a dry sherry despite its dark colour, so keep it for the cheese. Port and Stilton is the pairing everyone knows, and it works because sweetness meets salt.

For quantities, plan around half a bottle of wine for each adult drinking with the meal. A 750ml bottle pours six 125ml glasses. Open bottles as they are needed rather than all at once.

Anything warm, still and spiced can be made ahead, and most of it improves for the wait. Anything with bubbles cannot.

Mulled Wine for six to eight: 750ml red wine, 150ml brandy, 100ml fresh orange juice, 75ml honey, two cinnamon sticks, six cloves, two star anise and a few wide strips of citrus peel. Warm it all over the lowest heat until the surface steams, then hold it there for fifteen to twenty minutes. Choose a medium-bodied, unoaked red and save the good bottle for the table. A day’s rest deepens the spice.

Spiced Rum Punch serves about ten: 500ml spiced rum, 750ml cloudy apple juice, 500ml fresh orange juice, 100ml fresh lemon juice and 100ml honey, with cinnamon sticks, star anise and a few cloves. Heat it gently until the honey dissolves, or refrigerate it overnight and serve it over ice. Expedition Spiced Rum is a spiced rum, so it is the right bottle here. At ten cups, each carries about 50ml of rum, a double measure, so small punch cups make the bowl go further.

Wassail is the old English toasting bowl, and the drink for Twelfth Night. Put one litre of cloudy apple juice, 500ml dry cider, two cinnamon sticks, a teaspoon of ground ginger and an orange studded with six cloves in a large pan. Hold it below a simmer for twenty minutes, sweeten with brown sugar in stages, and add 100ml of brandy off the heat if you want it stronger. It serves eight to ten.

Coquito is Puerto Rico’s coconut and rum punch for Christmas and New Year, and it has to be made ahead. Blend 400ml coconut milk, 425g cream of coconut, 400g sweetened condensed milk, 355ml evaporated milk, 240ml white rum and a teaspoon of vanilla extract with ground cinnamon and grated nutmeg, add cinnamon sticks and chill it overnight. It calls for white rum.

Every warm batch follows one rule: keep it below the boil. Boiling drives off the alcohol and the aromatics and turns cloves and cinnamon bitter. A pan on the lowest ring, or a slow cooker on low, holds a batch for the evening. Use whole spices rather than ground, which cloud the drink and turn it bitter by the second hour. Serve with a punch ladle so nobody pours from the pan.

How much water a batch needs, how late to squeeze the citrus and how to scale any recipe for a crowd are worked through in how to batch cocktails.

After the meal, most people want one slow drink rather than several quick ones. This is the moment for a spirit-forward glass, a coffee drink or a small measure of something sweet.

The Old Standard is our rum Old Fashioned: 50ml Expedition Spiced Rum, 10ml demerara syrup, two dashes of Angostura and one of orange bitters. Stir the syrup and bitters together in a mixing glass, add the rum and ice, and stir for 20 to 30 seconds. Strain over one large cube in a rocks glass and express a strip of orange peel over the top. The rum’s vanilla, cinnamon and clove sit well after a Christmas meal.

The Brandy Alexander is pudding in a glass: 30ml cognac, 30ml crème de cacao and 30ml cream, shaken very hard for 12 seconds, double strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass and finished with grated nutmeg.

The Espresso Martini takes the place of the coffee: 50ml vodka, a shot of strong coffee, 30ml coffee liqueur and 10ml sugar syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and fine strained into a chilled glass. It carries caffeine, so pour it early in the evening.

Or skip the shaker. A small measure of port, PX or cognac needs nothing but a glass.

By Boxing Day the host has done enough. Serve from the bowl and the bottles already open: a cold Spiced Rum Punch made the night before, Coquito from the fridge, or Wassail held below a simmer on the hob covers a full house with no bar work.

Know what keeps once opened. In our kitchen fino and manzanilla last a few days in the fridge. We keep ruby and tawny port about eight weeks, stoppered and cold, and oloroso and Pedro Ximénez for months. Advocaat contains real egg, so we keep it in the fridge and finish it within weeks.

Sparkling wine is the one to finish. A champagne stopper with hinged arms keeps usable fizz for two or three days in the fridge, in our experience; a teaspoon in the neck does nothing. In our experience spirits at 40% ABV do not spoil once opened: keep the bottle upright, sealed and out of the sun.

Some guests are driving, some are pregnant, some do not drink. Give them a drink made with the same care and served in the same glass, and nobody has to explain themselves.

For arrival, the Rose Lemonade Fizz goes in a champagne flute beside the Kir Royales: 25ml rose syrup and 25ml fresh lemon juice, topped slowly with chilled sparkling water and stirred once. Sparkling Elderflower Lemonade is the longer drink: 25ml elderflower cordial and 25ml fresh lemon juice over ice in a highball, topped with 150ml sparkling water.

For a warm bowl, make Hot Spiced Cider with no spirit in the pot. The base is 1.2 litres of cloudy apple juice, not alcoholic cider, with two cinnamon sticks, six cloves, two star anise, a few strips of orange peel and 50ml maple syrup, heated gently for twenty minutes without boiling. Anyone who wants spirit adds 50ml of bourbon or dark rum to their own mug, so the pot stays alcohol-free. Wassail works the same way: made with all apple juice and the same spices, the bowl has no alcohol in it.

After dinner, the Chocolate Orange Mocktail sits beside the Brandy Alexander: 75ml fresh orange juice, 20ml chocolate syrup and 22.5ml cream, shaken hard and strained into a chilled coupe.

Drinks poured freehand at home run large, and over a long day that adds up. Use a jigger for every spirit: 25ml is a single measure and 50ml a double.

A UK unit is 10ml of pure alcohol. A 25ml measure of a 40% ABV spirit is one unit, so The Old Standard, at 50ml, is two. A 125ml glass of 12% ABV wine is one and a half units, and a cup of Spiced Rum Punch, at about 50ml of rum, is two.

Put a jug of water and glasses on the table from the start, and keep the food coming. Offer the alcohol-free drinks to everyone, not only to the drivers.

If you are driving on Boxing Day morning, your body clears roughly one unit an hour, and coffee, cold air and sleep do not speed it up. A late night can leave you over the limit the next morning.