Searches for the hot toddy edged past mulled wine in the UK over the past year, with 205,764 searches for the drink by name in the 12 months to August 2026 against 201,550 for mulled wine, according to UK search volume data from Ahrefs. The toddy was up 5.2 per cent on the year before while mulled wine fell 4.8 per cent, reversing the order of the previous 12 months, when mulled wine led by 211,786 to 195,636.
The bigger gap is in when people look. Mulled wine is a December drink and very little else. Searches reached 111,040 in December 2025 and then fell by 90 per cent to 11,356 in January. The hot toddy peaked in the same month at 45,984, but it was still drawing 23,688 searches in January, around half its Christmas level, and it was searched for more often than mulled wine in ten of the twelve months, losing out only in November and December.
Recipe searches tell a similar story. Searches for "hot toddy recipe" rose 45 per cent year on year to 58,434, and January 2026 was still running at 70 per cent of the December figure. Mulled wine recipe searches remain much larger at Christmas, 94,256 in December alone, so the festive favourite still comes out ahead once every way of asking is counted, but they fell to 5,559 in January. There were also 9,698 searches for "hot toddy for cold" across the year, which says a lot about why people look.
The season is turning again now. Last year searches for the hot toddy rose from 8,909 in August to 22,405 in October, two and a half times as many, and August 2026 started from almost the same point at 8,214.
The name has travelled a long way. It comes from the Hindi tari, the fermented sap of the palm, which first appears in English as "tarrie" and "taddy" around 1600, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. By the second half of the 18th century it meant spirit mixed with hot water, sugar and spice, and in Scotland and Ireland it settled into the whisky, honey, lemon and hot water version most people know. A popular story credits the Dublin born physician Robert Bentley Todd, who prescribed hot brandy with cinnamon and sugar to his patients, although the word was in use before he was born in 1809.
Mulled wine has the longer pedigree. The Romans heated and spiced their wine, medieval England had hippocras, and Dickens closed A Christmas Carol in 1843 with Scrooge offering Bob Cratchit a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, a hot spiced port. The Glühwein of the German style Christmas markets has done the rest, which is why its searches follow the market season so closely.
The toddy's reputation as a remedy is the part worth handling with care. The NHS advice for a cold is to rest, drink plenty of fluids such as water to avoid dehydration and, for a sore throat, try a hot lemon and honey drink. Alcohol is not on the list.
David Baddeley, founder of Boozy, said: "Mulled wine is a hosting drink. People look it up the week they have friends round and then forget about it until next December. The toddy is something you make for yourself on a cold night in January, and the numbers show that really clearly. If you have actually got a cold though, the NHS version with the lemon and honey and no whisky is the one to have. Save the toddy for when you are feeling better."
Boozy does not make a hot drink, and its range stays cold through the winter. The closest it comes to a winter drink is the Espresso Martini, whose UK searches peak every December. Boozy cans it as a 200ml serve and publishes the full shaken method in its Espresso Martini recipe. The recipes section also carries a mulled wine recipe for anyone hosting this Christmas, and the Penicillin, the whisky, lemon, honey and ginger drink Sam Ross created at Milk & Honey in New York in 2005, which is more or less a toddy served over ice.
Anyone making warm drinks at home can check what they come to at the Cocktail ABV Calculator, which covers more than 100 recipes and gives the finished strength and unit count for each. A generous pour changes a toddy quickly.
Boozy asks everyone to drink responsibly. Guidance on units, weekly limits and lower risk drinking is available at drinkaware.co.uk.
