When you've just come inside from being out on the slopes or at the rink-or maybe even from winter surfing-there's nothing more restorative than wrapping your two chilled hands around a hot toddy, the heady aroma of spirits and spices soothing the senses and instilling a feeling of warmth and well-being.

Hot toddy recipes are as endless as the winter night is long. A hot toddy is any spirit-rum, brandy, whisky, gin-to which is added hot water or another hot liquid such as tea or coffee. This mixture is sweetened with sugar or honey and flavoured with sweet spices and citrus. Atlantic Canadian bartenders, such as Jeremy MacLeod of DJ Purdy's Lounge in the Delta Fredericton Hotel, have developed their own variations such as the East Coast Hot Toddy. A pinch of paprika stirred in with a cinnamon stick distinguishes his recipe from others. "It has a warm Christmas feel to it," says Jeremy of his recipe that features Appleton rum.

Some use the phrase hot toddy to refer specifically to such sweetened, spiced, hot rum drinks but also to any other hot alcoholic drink. Strong red wines mulled with lemons or oranges, flavoured with spices such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger or nutmeg and sweetened with sugar, are popular at Christmas, as are hot cider drinks with similar festive ingredients. Coffees and even hot chocolates mixed with spirits such as brandy, cognac and bourbon or liqueurs, such as Irish cream, crème de cocoa and Grand Marnier, are in demand all winter long in Atlantic Canada. Add a dollop of whipped cream, sprinkled with any of the sweet spices, and you've got a comforting drink that fills the air with exotic aromas.

In Newfoundland the distinguishing ingredient is Screech-a term, according to Phil Power of the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation (NLC), that once described imported Jamaican rum that was so strong that the American troops stationed in Newfoundland during the Second World War would screech when they drank it. Today the NLC blends a milder Screech right in Newfoundland from Appleton rums distilled to order in Jamaica. To make his Newfie Coffee, Bill Butler, the bartender at the Battery Hotel and Suites in St. John's, adds an ounce and a half (45 mL) of the spirit to a cup of coffee and tops it with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.

Doug Harvey-30 years in the bar business as the owner of The Pilot House in Charlottetown-hasn't served a drink that would fit the narrow definition of a hot toddy in 10 years, but his spiked coffees are popular. "In the wintertime," he says, "you'll increase your coffee sales 20 per cent from the time you get a little snow on the ground." His Pilot House Coffee is a jolt of java propelled by three spirits-Grand Marnier, brandy and Kahlua-topped with three coffee beans floating on a cloud of chocolate whipped cream.

Those like Doug who are willing to apply the phrase more loosely would appreciate the roots of the term "toddy." Though an ancient antidote to winter weather and colds, toddies didn't originate in northern climates. Toddy first entered the English language in 1609 from the Hindi word "tadi," for the sap of any one of several palm trees that, as sailors quickly learned, fermented within hours of being tapped. The resulting sweet "palm wine," as it's commonly known, is as old as the discovery of fermentation.

Hot toddies evolved in colonial America when people gathered on winter nights in taverns around big fireplaces to keep warm, debate the issues of the day and enjoy a hot drink. Iron pokers for tending the fire and loggerheads, also called flip irons, for mulling cold drinks were kept beside the fireplace. Customers heated a loggerhead in the flames and used it to froth wine, beer, ale or spirits, which were served in tankards or thick mugs. Another concoction of spirits known variably as "kill devil," "rattle skull" or "whistle-belly vengeance" took well to heating in the same way.

Little survives of this method of preparing hot toddies except the term "at loggerheads," which refers to the fierce tavern debates that erupted over drinks, and the term "flip," a drink prepared in the colonial way. A recipe from an old book of drinks for Ale Flip calls for two egg whites and four yolks from "unquestionable eggs." The method: Beat them separately, then combine and stir in four tablespoons (60 mL) of sugar and half a grated nutmeg. Gradually stir in one quart (1 L) of boiling ale and pour the mixture back and forth between two pitchers until "a handsome froth is attained" and serve "one pillow to every customer."

So I gathered some unquestionable eggs and some unquestionable friends to conduct the following experiment: Does Ale Flip stand up as a modern drink? It was unanimous. Not one of the five who sipped the thick yellow foam ever wanted to see it again, let alone finish the drink set before them. One friend summed up his take on the bitter eggnog-ish concoction this way: "I think beer is fine and egg is fine, but they should be kept apart."

I agree. I'd much rather take pleasure in a warm, spiced, Caribbean Liquid Carol at the Charlotte Lane Café and Crafts in Shelburne, N.S., than relive the days when hot toddies tasted more like sustenance or medicine. Chef Roland Glauser created his Liquid Carol, minus the alcohol, as part of a local Christmas-shopping promotion. Served free with his Nanaimo bars, the punch and the dessert fuelled tired Shelburne shoppers as they made their rounds. This year he'll offer it mixed with two kinds of rum as a special evening Christmas drink.

The fire spirits are alive and well here on the East Coast, and as winter fun evolves for Atlantic Canadians, so do the drinks that comfort and rejuvenate us.

Recipes featured in this article:

• East Coast Hot Toddy
• Bill's Brazilian 
• Newfie Coffee 
• Charlotte Lane's Caribbean Liquid Carol
• Pilot House Coffee