TGRWT #17: Rose and Apple Hot Honey Toddy.

This month is National Whisky Month in Scotland. It has also the middle of National Honey Week this week. Naturally I decided to try and celebrate these two events by smooshing them into this month's TGRWT: Apple and Rose.
I've not done a cocktail in a while so I decided that rather than making more ice-cream (which I imagine would work well), having still not finished all the Chicken and Rose from last TGRWT, I would celebrate whisky month with a good old fashioned Scottish Cocktail: The Hot Toddy.

A Hot Toddy, for those who don't know, is a mixture of honey, whisky, hot water and lemon. It's great for cold nights, sore throats and flu (even swine flu). It's also just a cracking drink.

I couldn't afford a decent whisky or some proper heather honey this week, although I think that they would make a huge improvement to the drink. I ended up with Scotmid's own blend whisky (which is not all that bad really) and a Chilean honey, which has a nice taste of honeysuckle flowers but doesn't really enter into the spirit of a British Honey Week.
If you have some homemade apple juice I'm sure that will make a better drink too.

Here's the drink I made:

Rose and Apple Hot Honey Toddy.
Heat up enough apple juice to fill your mug.
Take off the heat and put in a handfull of dried rose petals.
Leave for 3 or 4 minutes and strain.
Stir in a couple of teaspoons of honey (to taste).
Add a generous slug of whisky (Scotch thankyou very much)
Taste and add some rose water if you think it needs it.

Enjoy.


This really is quite a posh version of a very un-posh drink but it tastes great. As I've said some better ingredients would lift it up to being an exceptional drink (the version I made was more a proof-of-concept as much as anything else, but a very enjoyable one).
The balance of rose is quite a delicate thing so be slow with the amount of rose water you add. If you put the petals in when the apple juice is still over the heat they can go a bit mushy.