Warm Up Your Winter with Wassail

For centuries, the holidays have been synonymous with revelry, gift-giving and well-wishes. 

Naturally, festive food often matched the joyous spirit and warmed the soul.

In times past, Christmas and New Year’s revelers would drink generously from the wassail bowl, a large ornate punch bowl filled with wassail — a warm, spiced beverage made with ale, mulled wine or cider. 

Some early recipes called for beaten egg whites to be tempered into the heated beverage. This created soft peaks, earning the drink the name “lambswool” in some corners of England. As the wassail bowl was passed around, people wished each other good health. 

Wassailing, which is pronounced more like “waffling” rather than “sailing,” was derived from the Old English word “was hál,” which means to be in “good health,” according to the National Trust, a conservation charity based in England. 

Maddie Beihl, a camp coordinator at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, says wassail and the act of “wassailing” took place in England in the mid-17th century through the late 18th century. 

“It’s a way of almost making an offering to ensure that you have a really good harvest of apples or barley for the coming year,” Beihl says.

During “wassailing,” people went door-to-door, petitioning the home’s owner (or whoever would listen) to hear their carols. They would ask for a bit of mead or beer, some bread, or the chance to warm up by a roaring fire, before heading back out into the snow to do it all over again.

In the apple orchards around England, people made a “hullabaloo” by banging pots and pans together, and hung pieces of bread from the branches to “bless” the orchards and make an offering of cider to the gods for a good harvest next year. Even the wassail bowl had meaning. Some were made from lignum vitae, a dense hardwood with dark, reddish colors. 

Wassail, which paired pagan and religious symbolism, also came with its own lore full of fantastical characters. One folktale speaks of an “Apple Tree Man,” a spirit who revealed a stash of gold treasure to the person who offers him a mulled drink. 

As people walked through the orchards, a wassail “king” would lead a processional in traditional English carols like “Gloucester Wassail” and “Here We Come A-wassailing.” Then the wassail queen would be lifted into the apple trees to hang her cider-soaked toast (known as sop) from its branches. 

This ongoing celebration began at Christmas and usually ended 12 nights later on the Christian holiday of Epiphany, usually around Jan. 6. But the partying may have gone on longer than that. 

“Christmas celebrations could last until mid-January. That’s typically when you see wassailing happening in England,” Beihl says.

Did Colonial settlers in New England wassail? Yes and no.

“Most of the original settlers in New Hampshire came from southern England, where this same custom of wassailing originated. It wouldn’t be crazy to imagine that a lot of those customs came with them,” Beihl says.

But the pagan tradition of making an offering to the trees wasn’t always welcome in the new, Puritan world, Beihl says.

“What we run into in the colonial era is this divide between Puritans and the Church of England. Giving an offering to the apple orchards is a pretty pagan ritual. That’s where it gets really hard to find concrete evidence that people are definitively wassailing in New Hampshire,” Beihl says.

So, examples of wassailing around here are slight. 

“There was so much Puritan influence, historically, that a lot of these more traditional, English customs don’t show up in the ways that we expect them to in the historical record. We have to rely on the connections that are there,” Beihl says.

 There was no doubt that things could get rowdy during Wassail, especially as Twelfth Night nears, she says.

“You throw some big parties, and when you start to have the wassail drink, I think that becomes a little bit less about blessing apples in your crops and (more) about wishing each other good health. So, the more you drink, the more you’re going to have good health for the next year. It could get a little raucous,” Beihl says.

In fact, historians have proof that Christmas revelry was “banned” in parts of New Hampshire.

“There are some articles in Portsmouth newspapers from the late 18th century that talk about the temporary ban of Christmas reveling. Christmas isn’t illegal; you can go to church on Christmas. (But) anything that brings disruption, which would be a lot of the drinking and the partying (that’s) traditionally associated with an Old English custom of celebrating Christmas … which is more like a feast, as opposed to like a religious observance, (would be banned),” Beihl says. 

Regardless, New Englanders have certainly carried on with the biggest component of wassail: the apples, which weren’t native to North America until colonists arrived, Beihl says. It’s so ingrained in New Hampshire’s culture that apple cider is the official state beverage.

“We, historically in New England, have drunk a whole lot of hard cider as opposed to water or milk as a daily beverage. It’s the most common beverage in the early colonial era,” Beihl says.

You can make wassail from apple cider, mulled wine or ale, and add spices like clove and allspice. Slices of citrus fruits like oranges and cinnamon sticks might be thrown in the pot, too. 

Or you can grab a can of Wassail Ale.

Since 1996, Woodstock Inn Brewery in North Woodstock has been busy making its Wassail Ale, which is only offered during the holidays but remains a hot seller. Made in the style of a classic English Strong Ale, Wassail Ale isn’t made with spices, instead getting its flavor from grains. 

Either way, fans flock to the brewery to get a taste of 17th-century England, say sales manager Garrett Smith and brewery manager Peter Dodenhoff.

“It’s deep ruby red in color, very smooth and malty. It’s one of those beers that can warm you up on a cold winter’s night,” Dodenhoff says. 

Wassail Ale can be used to make your own at-home wassail — or if you like, you can use darker, hoppier beers.

“Traditionally, wassail is almost served as a mulled wine kind of vibe, where you warm it up, add some cinnamon and clove. If you want to get the full wintery experience, then you can add whatever you want to it,” Dodenhoff says.

Smith and Dodenhoff suggest warming your beer slightly, then adding spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, clove or allspice. 

“It’s a choose-your-own-adventure sort of thing. You could do a little orange peel, if you’re so inclined,” Dodenhoff says.

“It changes the way you feel real fast. It makes your face warm. It’s a great food beer too,” Smith adds. 

About 600 to 900 gallons of the limited seasonal release is being produced at the brewery for the holidays. But once January hits, demand for Wassail Ale drops significantly. 

Whichever way you wassail, its history continues. You don’t have to be British or create an overly complicated drink to enjoy wassail. A simple “boozy punch” might just do the trick —though alcohol is optional.

Just follow the recipe seen at left and make some noise to celebrate the season, or visit a nearby wassail festival to really get into the mood.

Homemade Wassail Mulled Apple Cider with Lemon and Spices in glasses. Winter alcoholic hot drink. Photos by Elle Torres

Wassail Recipe 
(courtesy of The Williamsburg Cookbook)

1 cup sugar

4 cinnamon sticks

3 lemon slices

2 cups pineapple juice

2 cups orange juice

6 cups dry red wine

½ cup lemon juice

1 cup dry sherry

2 lemons, sliced 

Boil the sugar, cinnamon sticks and 3 lemon slices in a ½ cup of water for 5 minutes and strain. Discard the cinnamon sticks and lemon slices.

Heat, but do not boil, the remaining ingredients. Combine with the syrup, garnish with the lemon slices and serve hot.

Serves: 20

Wassail Events:

December 7
Winter Wassail
Stonewall Farm, 242 Chesterfield Road, Keene.
Music by 1800s carolers, cocoa bar, wassail, wagon rides, crafts.  stonewallfarm.org/events/winter-wassail-2

December 13-15
40th Annual Wassail Weekend 
Woodstock, Vermont. Activities like book sales, craft fairs, wassail parade, a yule log and more. woodstockvt.com/the-town/blog/wassail-weekend-in-woodstock-2024