The nights are drawing in, winter is coming and in the UK at least, it’s raining a lot.

Today I’m heading up to Yorkshire for a holiday.  This time last year, we headed up to Northumberland and stopped in Yorkshire on the way home. The weather was glorious.

So after Northumberland in the spring, we decided that we missed the Yorkshire stop and there was a good deal on a cottage near Middleham so why not go? The weather was probably going to be amazing like last year. Erm, no…North Yorkshire is currently flooded and it’s not really going to be sunny.

With all this in mind, drinks should be warming. Which means whiskey or brandy and in my house, whiskey is the way to go.

So the Whisky Mac. Of course you should probably use Scotch, but I don’t often have it in the booze cupboard, although I can see this absolutely working with something peaty and smokey. I generally use a blended Irish, Jamesons (’cause Powers is so bloody difficult to get in England!) or the Waitrose Irish Whiskey which is pretty good. There’s a school of thought that says that Irish whiskey isn’t proper and I do drink scotch but my default is Irish, blame my surname and faulty genetics if you will. Other whiskeys/whiskys are available but probably not a great idea to use a single malt, you are after all, about to dump ginger wine in it!

The ginger wine should be the alcoholic variety, Stones is better than Sainsbury’s own but that’s all I can tell you. I have also used the non-alcoholic version, Kitty’s and that gives more of a ginger kick.

I like lots of ice but if you don’t use less.

What

60ml whiskey

60ml ginger wine

How

1) Fill a glass with ice

2) Pour in ginger wine and whiskey, stir a bit

3) Drink