Hot Drink Recipes You'll Love

By The editors of MidwestLiving.com
Updated October 09, 2020

Warm up your parties or family gatherings with our recipes for hot chocolate, flavored coffee, spiced tea, apple cider, slow cooker juice mixes and more.

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Caramel-Hazelnut Café Mocha

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Melted Nutella. Need we say more? Our updated version of hot chocolate is made in a slow cooker, just for kicks, and after cooking, can be kept on the warm setting for one hour.

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Vin Brulé

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If you like, garnish cups of chef Gerard Craft'’s Italian mulled wine with thin orange slices or pretty curls of orange peel. This recipe multiplies easily and can be made ahead and reheated before serving. 

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Mulled Cranberry Punch

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Cranberry juice, juice concentrate, spices, orange juice and water simmers in your slow cooker. If you're serving this punch at a party, keep it warm on the low-heat setting for up to two hours. 

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Double-Hot Drinking Chocolate

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This isn't a watery cocoa for the kids on movie night. It's a fully adult dessert that you just happen to sip from a cup. A dash of cayenne pepper makes the drink extra-warming without being overtly spicy. 

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Chai-Maple Cider

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Breathe deeply. This spiced cider tea from the slow cooker doubles as aromatherapy. After cooking, the cider can be kept on the warm setting for one hour. 

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Hot Cocoa-Nut

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While traveling in Israel, Minnesota blogger Molly Yeh discovered hawaij, a spice blend often sprinkled in coffee. In this recipe from her book Molly on the Range ($32.50, Rodale), she adds hawaij to her coconut-based hot chocolate for extra flavor. 

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Oatmeal Cream Pie

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Brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, butter, vanilla, egg-it's like a rich, drinkable cookie. Our slow cooker twist on classic eggnog can be kept on the warm setting for one hour. 

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Hot Holiday Apple Cider

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This rosy cider simmers for just 10 minutes, making a great choice for drop-in visitors or last-minute parties. The recipe comes from Burchell's White Hill Farmhouse Inn in Minden, Nebraska. 

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Vanilla Cafe Latte

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Here's our version of vanilla coffee served at a Missouri coffee house. Vanilla syrup, steamed milk and frothed milk flavor hot brewed espresso or strong coffee. 

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Chocolate Chai Tea

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This chai tea is spicy, chocolatey and just a little thick. 

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Vanilla Bean Infused Hot Chocolate

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Jill Prescott of Wisconsin's former Ecole de Cuisine cooking school created this heavenly take on hot chocolate. 

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Coconut Tres Leches Hot Chocolate

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A combination of coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk and fat-free milk puts a fresh spin on classic hot chocolate. 

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Hot Buttered Rum and Spiced Pear Tea

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Freeze a base of ice cream, butter, sugar and spices, then combine with rum and boiling water when you're ready to serve our Hot Buttered Rum (recipe at link above). You can freeze the base for up to three months—almost long enough to last through a Midwest winter!

Pear nectar, honey, an orange and spices flavor easy-to-make Spiced Pear Tea. 

 

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Tea and Cider Wassail

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Tea, four fruit juices and spices brew in your slow cooker. Serve the drink from the cooker or a heatproof bowl. 

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White Hot Chocolate

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Light cream, vanilla-flavor baking pieces, cinnamon and nutmeg combine for a rich hot drink. To create the foam on top, before serving mix some of the hot chocolate mixture in a blender until frothy. 

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Spiced Black Tea

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Prepare this spiced tea in just 10 minutes, using ingredients including pomegranate juice, lemon juice, fresh ginger, cloves, cinnamon and star anise. 

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Hot Caramel Chocolate

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Have a bowl of milk chocolate-covered round caramels ready when you serve this, so family or guests can sprinkle the candy on top of the crown of whipped cream. 

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Chocolate Cappuccino

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Chopped semisweet chocolate and crushed peppermints flavor this easy hot coffee drink. Garnish with a peppermint stick. 

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Hot Strawberry Cider

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Frozen sliced strawberries combine with apple cider or juice, cinnamon, and cloves for an easy-to-make hot drink. Garnish with a cinnamon stick and strawberry or apple slices, if you like.  

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Chocolate Cocoa Deluxe

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Cook bittersweet or semisweet chocolate in water, then add your choice of Grand Marnier, amaretto or vanilla flavoring. Bittersweet chocolate will add a stronger flavor than semisweet. 

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Spiced Apple-Cranberry Cider and more

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Warm up cold evenings in a flash when you serve these drinks hot from your microwave. Spiced Apple-Cranberry Cider combines cranberry-juice cocktail with apple cider or apple juice, cloves and cinnamon. Garnish with a skewer of cranberries, if you like.Warm-You-Up Hot Currant Punch blends currant jelly, pineapple juice and lemon juice. Lemony Spiced Cider adds a flavor punch to cider via cloves, cinnamon, lemon peel and honey.  

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Hot Coffee Latte Eggnog

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A stick of cinnamon, whipped cream, ground spice or a peppermint stick add a special-occasion touch to homemade eggnog. 

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Gluhwein (Hot Mulled Wine)

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Udo Heinz from the Baum Wine Group in Bensenville, Illinois, says he fixes this German/Austrian specialty in the traditional Nuremberg way: hot, a bit sweet and spiced. We created both an adult and a nonalcoholic "Kinder" (kids') version using directions from Udo. 

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Spiced Orange Mocha

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Blend coffee, cocoa powder, orange, spices and a little rum extract to create this mellow brew. 

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Eggnog Hot Chocolate

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Simmer vanilla bean, orange peel and whole nutmeg in cream, then melt in chunks of white and milk chocolate for a steamy-sweet beverage with a nog-like flavor. 

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By The editors of MidwestLiving.com