Weekly DIY Roundup: Drinks for Winter Warming!

I don't know about you, but one of my favorite things about the chilly season is delicious hot drinks! I usually stick with basic hot tea, but sometimes I want to try something special and DIY a really fabulous winter treat! So I've rounded up a bunch of them - non-alcoholic first, then adult drinks towards the bottom - for your making and sipping enjoyment!

I do love me some hot apple cider! On Squidoo you'll find a recipe for this soul-warming beverage (photo above), as well as one for apple cider with a peppermint twist. And Red Dirt Mother shows us a brilliant way to serve it up:

I love the taste of chai, but I much prefer real tea versions, or homemade kinds, to the packaged, sugary powder variety. Make your own deluxe hot chai mix with this recipe on cakeyvoice!

And treep1 made an instructable for home made chai lattes:

For a more authentic recipe, check out zero0928's instructable for "Indian Tea (aka Chai)" - I love chai in Indian restaurants, so I've got to try this one!

Also on instructables, chinnerz has a how-to for this delicious-sounding Coffee+Nutella drink:

For a special touch on your winter coffee drinks, check out How about orange's coffee stencil instructions:

To turn your winter drink making into gifts, the motherload has a post on making delicious hot drink mixes like hot cocoa and vanilla chai:

Now to transition into grown-up drinks, delish has a collection of Warming Winter Drinks, which includes non-alcoholic Spiced Warm Apple Cider and Vanilla Café au Lait, and alcoholic White Spiced Coffee (sounds SO good!) and Block Island Fog Coffee.

Fine Living has 9 Hot Winter Cocktail recipes, including Hot Spiked Cider, Cranberry Hot Toddies, Nutty Irishman, and Vanilla Hot Chocolate Seduction (yummmm).

Brookelynn on Craft: blog shares a photo-filled how-to for this fantastic looking Grown-Up Hot Chocolate:

You can read about Hot Toddies on Squidoo, including a recipe from 1st Traveler's Choice Internet Cookbook, and there's another hot toddy recipe on epicurious for a slight variation.

The Food Network's website offers a recipe for Hot Buttered Rum Cocktail, and I've used this one by James Starmer:

The Space Pope on instructables shows us how to make Eggy Wegg Nogg - not a hot drink, but with whiskey, rum, and brandy, I'm sure it'll warm you right up!

This Dark and Snow-Stormy featured on Craft: blog is also a cold drink - extra cold because it's made with actual snow, so it definitely qualifies as a winter treat!

And I'll leave you with a link to Martha Stewart's Cocktail Hour - with this yummy looking Candy Cane Cocktail recipe. Do you have a favorite drink for wintertime? If yes, share it with us in the comments!

9 Comments

I adore the warm cider idea! I'm totally making this for my boyfriend tomorrow. I just hope I can find the 'allspice'. I've never heard of it here in Belgium... . Thank you so much for all the super great ideas!!!!
posted 3 months ago by OracleDesigns Reply to comment
I love the stencil. I've seen it done in restaurants but could never figure out how. I think I'm gonna try it this weekend. wedding centerpiece
posted 4 months ago by Sarah (guest) Reply to comment
Oh goodness, all of these look scrumptious. But, I would like to add, if you're looking for a good wintertime tea, the Candy Cane Green Tea from Trader Joes is absolutely amazing.
posted 4 months ago by Savanah Raine (guest) Reply to comment
Hey, what about a nice cup of Austrian "glühwein",(glowing wine) or Dutch "bisschopswijn" (bishop wine). That will warm you up nicely. Take a bottle of red or white wine,( I recommend the red) a cinnamonstick , 1 clove, 1 star anise, citruspeel of 1 lemon or orange, warm it up on the stove all together for about half an hour , do not let it boil, that will spoil the glowing and giggling effect, and drink it while it's nice and warm. Enjoy!! You can leave out one of the ingredients if you don't like it, but the wine has to stay ofcourse!!
posted 4 months ago by kelkemerkel Reply to comment
- If you have a sweet tooth use some sugar or honey to make it sweet as you desire.....
  posted 4 months ago by kelkemerkel
- that sounds excellent! and i love its name!
  posted 3 months ago by jennabanena
This is going to sound sort of weird but I spent ten minutes staring at the cup in the hot buttered rum picture. I covet it. I haven't even tried making it yet, but my favorite chai recipe is Lucy Knisely's simply because it's a comic. Here it is: http://lucylou.livejournal.com/575537.html There's a really delicious drink I found in some cookbook or other a while back. It's called khchaf (I have no idea how to pronounce that, so I jokingly call it kerchief) and I think the cookbook said it was Algerian. I found a recipe online, though, that says it's Ugandan so I don't even know. Basically what you do is this: stick like four cinnamon sticks in water, bring that to a boil, add about a half cup of raisins, turn it down to a simmer. Leave it alone for 15 minutes and let the delicious scent permeate your house. Add sugar to taste and let it dissolve. Take the pot off the heat and take out the cinnamon sticks. Then you're supposed to chill it, but I think it's just as delicious if not more so warm.
posted 4 months ago by Marion (guest) Reply to comment
I'm down for hot chocolate, stirred with a candy cane. What's best is, if I miss the holidays the rest of the year, s-b*cks has peppermint syrup all year
posted 4 months ago by st_gutfree Reply to comment
Yum!! Yay, drinks! My mom has been making these awesome Apricot Ceylon Tea Lattes... secret ingredient = vanilla syrup. Yum!
posted 4 months ago by croqzine Reply to comment