Talk:Hot toddy

Bronze Bell
i'm not sure the excerpt of The Bronze Bell is really helpful in describing what a hot toddy is...that's just my opinion though, so i'll leave it for now. Archtemplar 04:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)Archtemplar

It just helps to validate it's cultural value, I guess. Tez 05:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I put it in for two reasons. First, articles that are simply recipes are not allowed in Wikipedia. I wanted to indicate that a hot toddy was not just one of hundreds of mixed drink, just as a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich is not just one of hundreds of sandwiches. Second, I knew as "common knowledge" that hot toddies are traditionally offered following exposure to severe weather and were traditionally believed to have a curative effect on colds or flu, but I wanted to document that rather than just insert it as my own opinion. The Bronze Bell is an obscure and unimportant book, but the passage I found illustrates the traditional context of the hot toddy perfectly. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That's a very good additions/ reasoning. Too many culinary articles on WP lack history or links to culture - they're just recipes.  --JD79 01:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

"National Hot Toddy Day"
I'm very skeptical. It is true that a Google search on the exact phrase "National Hot Toddy Day" yields many hits, all concurring that it is January 11th, but none of the ones I've looked at give any source. What agency, organization, association, etc. has declared January 11th to be "Hot Toddy Day?" I think it's quite likely that someone just made it up and that websites have copied it from each other. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorta like Wikipedia, huh? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.32.177.56 (talk) 20:40, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Anglosphere
"Hot toddy is a name, used in the English speaking world (originally Scotland), for a mixed drink that is served hot."

Why did someone think it necessary to put the comment about "English speaking world" (which should be, by the way, "English-speaking world") on this article, but not other English Wikipedia articles? Is not the presence of this page on the English-language Wikipedia enough indication that the term can be assumed to be English? When pages are put on English Wikipedia, and they're about something with a foreign term or foreign word, it makes sense to state that the term is not English. Here, however, it seems superfluous to state that the term is from the "English speaking word." I propose removing this statement.

It would possibly be better to change it to indicate the phrase is slang/a colloquialism, which i assume was what the writer was trying to convey - english is spoken as a second language in many countries, but i doubt the phrase would ever be used, or even recognised, by anyone other than native english/australian/canadian etc. Inzy 02:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe it's because in several areas where English is not native, but spoken due to colonization, toddy is a generic name for palm wine. --JD79 01:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Such a drink is never referred to as a hot toddy in Ireland. The term, if used at all, would be taken instead to mean a hot whiskey or hot port. They are just called, well, 'hot whiskey' or 'hot port' and are made by adding whiskey or port to hot water containing sugar and cloves. I have often had a hot toddy in Scotland too and never did it contain any liquid other than water. I am not at all convinced that what is described here would be recognised as a hot toddy by anyone there. The link in external links describes a drink based on hot water, not coffee, tea or anything else. --Abbeyvet

This word, and in my experience the drink itself, is very rarely used in the American south. Drinking heated alcoholic beverages just isn't a part of the native culture here. I guess it is just too hot here for this to be practical. The pervasiveness of fundamental christianity also contributes to a casual use of alcohol.

Stargate episode
I'm snipping:
 * O'Neill, Jack in the Stargate: Atlantis episode The Return.

First, the Wikipedia article cited does not mention hot toddies. Second, even if it did, Wikipedia articles are not considered to be reliable sources for other Wikipedia articles.

Please do not reinsert without a source citation that a) mentions hot toddies and b) meets the reliable source guidelines. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Resemblance to cola
"Curiously enough, there is a noticeable resemblance between the ingredients of a hot toddy and those of cola soft drinks." -- Ok, what resemblance is there? And, assuming that there is a resemblance, why should that fact be called "curious"? And how is it relevant? 24.159.255.29 04:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

What is a hot toddy?
I always thought that a 'hot toddy' was just another name for a hot whiskey; i.e. whiskey, hot water, sugar, lemon and cloves?


 * I have heard it refered to brandy and hot apple cider. I guess it can be any kind of cocktail involiving hot liquids as a mixer and a spirit.


 * From the Scottish point of view a hot toddy is a drink made from whisky, hot water, honey and lemon (the last two are subject to if you have them). It is only ever made/offered if someone has a cold or is run down (I have never heard of it being offered to someone with the flu though). It is an ill person’s drink. Other dark spirits may be substituted due to taste/availability (such as rum, brandy, etc) but a hot toddy is always assumed to be made with whisky. This is ubiquitous across Scotland and is by and large a traditional remedy handed down by word of mouth and custom, though I doubt it actually helps the cold it makes you care less. However, due to its ‘house-wife’s tale’ nature I have no idea how to cite it.0707034b (talk) 23:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * This is the case in England too. --Ef80 (talk) 20:27, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Page Layout
I might suggest that the intro be expanded or reformatted somewhat: I thought, given the predominance of the bullet-point items at the outset, the page was a disambig. Perhaps the bullets could be moved further down or cushioned with more text in paragraph form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hai Holbytlan (talk • contribs) 17:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

more palatable to women?
I pulled "to women" from this statement: Hot toddy is a name given to a mixed drink that is served hot, believed to have originated in the 18th century to make the taste of scotch more palatable to women.

Which still needs a citation but is a little less spurious now.

Removed header
Prior to my edit there was a misspelled and uncited bit at the top describing the alleged health benefits of the hot toddy. I don't know anything about the drink, but the section I removed was definitely malformatted and, without sources, probably shouldn't be in the article.

Also, I notice that the bit about "more palatable to women" is still there. There either is no source cited or the source that is cited (for the next sentence) doesn't actually deal with it. I'd suggest removing it, but I don't want to do so hastily.

Anyway, please let me know if you think that my removal was ill-advised/ill-thought-out/evil/etc.

dcd139 (talk) 14:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * No worries. It was totally unsourced and very poorly written. I would have removed it if you hadn't gotten to it before I did. ;-) Hadn't noticed the part about women, but I'll take a look. –BMRR (talk) 16:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The reference deals with the first distillation of Scotch whisky, but makes no mention of Hot Toddies or women. I added a "citation needed" tag. –BMRR (talk) 16:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Lung Association article doesn't exist?
The link to the American Lung Association is broken and I can't find a copy of the study on their site or elsewhere. There are references to it at WebMD, as well as on other pages, but can't seem to track down the original article. Can anyone help? Zminer (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

ALA
Should the first paragraph really mention “… the American Lung Association now recommends avoiding treating the common cold with alcoholic beverages as they cause dehydration.”? Is it a super common belief that they do? Seems more like trivia than part of a basic summary, but I could be biased because I personally never heard this (and grew up in a tea-totaling home). --70.96.30.132 (talk) 00:37, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * While heavily Original Research, I recall my aunt talking about making herself a hot toddy on a few occasions when she had a cold.

So, it IS common, possibly in our region, possibly nationwide. For THAT, I have no reference or information.Wzrd1 (talk) 00:03, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

A hot toddy is a traditional treatment for the common cold. I very much doubt if anybody believes it to be truly curative nowadays, but it certainly makes you feel better while you're drinking it. I'm writing this with a bad cold, drinking a hot toddy before going to bed. --Ef80 (talk) 20:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

"How-to" citation - remove?
The recipe listed in the article as a 'traditional Scottish recipe' seems to be a very good example of what a hot toddy is, rather than simply instructions on how to make one. This recipe helped me understand what a hot toddy is, even beyond the simple description at the beginning. I suggest that the recipe be kept and the citation questioning its validity ('Howto') be removed. Anyone second the motion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.51.56.1 (talk) 18:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Northern British
Surely the usage of Northern British is American slang. I've never heard of it. Anyway it is referring to Scotland, this is both shorter and politically correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobroxxu (talk • contribs) 11:44, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

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Rum = Still a Toddy?
Hoping those with better subject knowledge can help me out. Hot buttered rum is currently AfD, so I've been looking through it. It launched me into a search to determine whether it fell under being a Toddy variant - there seemed to be two main difference grounds: i) Hot Toddy didn't include the use of rum as its alcohol ii) The difference was greater than that of just the spirit - e.g. use of butter, coconut milk or even ice cream

Obviously only the first is relevant here - so I was just wondering whether Hot Toddy usually does include those with rum, or whether or if people just refer to the drink with rum as a toddy when it technically isn't. (Just a note, this isn't the specific grounds for AfD as it stands...I just got curious!) Thanks :) Nosebagbear (talk) 21:00, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Nosebagbear Hot rum toddy, or rum hot toddy is a widely available recipe, since the 1950s. It's not clear from this whether the adjective "rum" means, as in salt-and-vinegar crisps, the variety of hot toddy, or as in beetroot crisps, something like hot toddy but made with rum.   However the use of "rum toddy" perhaps as a naval item stirred something in the recesses of my memory.  After a little digging I found references to "rum toddy" going back to 1801 in the Memoirs of the life and writings of Thomas Chalmers.   It does not seem to be a particularly naval drink at this time, in Land sharks and sea gulls (1838) we read:


 * Maybe this came later, as the landlubbers could afford the more expensive whiskey... From about 1835, rum toddy seems to take on nautical overtones, but this may have been in the imagination of novelists.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:47, 9 October 2019 (UTC).


 * - thanks for your answer, you're right that there's two possibilities, phrased in a better way than I could. Thankfully the AfD was a Keep and I can see that it's had some significant improvements since. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:35, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

‘Such as tea’????
The sentence claiming that hot toddies contain herbs ‘such as tea’ is nonsense. Tea leaves can hardly be described as herbs, despite the existence of herbal teas. Later on in this article we talk about cold toddies containing tea, which may be where the confusion comes from.

As for what exactly hot toddies contain, I’d still call it a hot toddy if it had lime rather than lemon or if the whisky was mixed with lemonade (especially the fizzy British variety rather than the flat American one), rather than water, prior to being heated. Also, I’ve never had it with herbs or spices (or cold with tea for that matter). My perspective is as an Englishman but I agree with the Scotsman in the previous comments that it’s typically made with whisky FWIW. Of course that’s all subjective original research though. Overlordnat1 (talk) 19:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The article has a very American perspective, which is pretty standard for WP drinks articles. Americans may make so-called hot toddies with all sorts of weird ingredients, but in Britain (and particularly Scotland) they're whisky, hot water and honey or sugar. --Ef80 (talk) 22:06, 23 April 2024 (UTC)