Cups That Cheer

These are depressing times—if the terrorists don’t get you, the stockmarket surely will. Here are two recipes to give your spirits a lift during the festive season. The hot cocktail is for those of you freezing in the north Indian winter; the chilled concoction is for our friends in the balmy south.

Hot Buttered Rum

• 2 tablespoons white rum
  
• 2 tablespoons dark rum
  
• 4 whole cloves (lavang)
  
• 2 cinnamon sticks (daal chini)
  
• 1 teaspoon sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  
• 1 teaspoon butter
  
• Boiling water

Sangria

• 1 bottle red wine
  
• 1 whole orange peeled and sliced into thin rounds
  
• 1 fresh peach, peeled, pitted and sliced thin
  
• 1 lemon with the peel sliced thin
  
• 4 tablespoons cognac
  
• 4 tablespoons Cointreau
  
• 1 tablespoon sugar
  
• 1 quarter of 750ml bottle of soda water

Bhaichand Patel is a party animal & cocktails expert. His book on cocktails and spirits, a Penguin imprint, will come outin mid-2009.