Best Christmas Drinks for Restaurants and Cafés in the UK

This is your UK guide to profitable festive drinks — from mulled wine to batched winter spritzes — with pricing tips, compliance must-knows, UK hospitality industry data.

The Best Christmas Drinks in the UK

House Mulled Wine (batched) is your winter classic. Build it with Spanish red plus orange or cranberry, cinnamon, clove and star anise, demerara sugar, and finish with a brandy float. Price it at £8.50–£9.50. For batching, prepare 10–12 litres in warmers and hold at 70–75°C to preserve aromatics. It has a 3–4 day shelf life when chilled pre-spice, but use it same-day once spiced. Menu copy to consider: "Slow-spiced, citrusy, winter classic."

Winter Spritz (low-ABV option) combines bitter aperitif with prosecco and spiced cranberry soda, garnished with an orange wheel and rosemary. Price at £9–£11 and upsell to a zero-proof variant. You can carbonate the spiced soda in-house for better margin and control.

Maple Old Fashioned brings bourbon or rye together with maple syrup, Angostura bitters and orange oils. Price at £11–£13. To batch, mix 750ml spirit with 60ml 2:1 maple and bitters, then pour 90ml over big ice per serve.

Cranberry-Sage Margarita is festive and fresh: blanco tequila, triple sec, cranberry, lime and sage saline. Price at £11–£12.50. Pre-dilute for speed during service and add a festive sugared rim.

Spiced Rum Hot Apple combines dark or spiced rum with cloudy apple juice, lemon and cinnamon syrup. Price at £8.50–£10. For a zero-proof version, switch the rum for spiced verjus or de-alcoholised spirit.

Irish Coffee (properly done) uses fresh filter coffee, Irish whiskey, demerara sugar and softly whipped cream. Price at £9–£11. Pre-warm your glasses and whip cream to ribbons, not peaks, for speed during service.

After-Dinner Espresso Martini (pre-batched) blends vodka, coffee liqueur, cafetière concentrate and vanilla. Price at £11–£13. Batch it with 700ml vodka, 300ml liqueur, 400ml concentrate and 40ml vanilla, then shake 90ml per serve.

Sloe Gin Fizz (light & festive) is built with sloe gin, lemon, gomme and soda, garnished with winter berries. Price at £9–£11.

Luxury Spiked Hot Chocolate (three ways) starts with a dark chocolate ganache base where guests choose between Baileys, rum or orange liqueur. Price at £7.50–£9 for the alcoholic version or £5.50–£6.50 for non-alcoholic. Merchandise it by offering add-on house marshmallows or ginger biscuits for an extra pound.

House-Made "Snowball" Highball (nostalgia sell) brings advocaat together with lemonade and lime, with edible glitter used sparingly. Price at £8.50–£9.50.

Design Your Menu to Convert (Quick Wins)

Printed keepsake menus on A5 or A4 heavy stock work well because guests notice and prefer them. Use round prices like £10 with clear inclusions, such as "includes cream plus shaved chocolate." Place two price anchors per section, featuring a premium hero and a value hero to frame choices. 

Show some restraint with photos but use them strategically: consumer research shows photos are important to most diners (33% say very important and 40.5% say somewhat important in Toast Consumer Preferences Survey 2025), so use one or two high-impact images. For photography, remember that warm or dimmed lighting is preferred by 64.5% of diners, perfect for creating those cosy festive shots.

Inspiration: Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Drinks Megamix

Looking for quick, guest-pleasing serves your team can execute at pace? Jamie Oliver’s bite-size Christmas Drinks Megamix is a handy staff warm-up before service — it covers mulled wine, a party punch, and a fun daiquiri twist you can batch and brand for your venue. Watch with your bar team, agree your specs, then drop the winners into your festive menu. 

Compliance & Responsible Marketing

When promoting festive drinks, double-check these mandatory conditions under the Licensing Act 2003 (Amendment) Order 2014. There's a ban on irresponsible promotions, which includes drinking games, "all-you-can-drink" deals and dispensing alcohol directly into customers' mouths. You must provide free potable water to customers and have an age-verification policy in place, such as Challenge 25. You also need to offer smaller measures (beer or cider half pint, wine 125ml, spirits 25ml) and make customers aware of these options.

For advertising standards under the CAP Code Section 18, don't target under-18s, don't imply or condone immoderate or irresponsible drinking, and be careful with promotions and user-generated content. The Advertising Standards Authority provides detailed guidance on alcohol marketing.

On allergens, you must inform customers if any of the 14 regulated allergens are in your drinks. Think about sulphites in wine or mulled mixers, milk in hot chocolate, and nuts in garnishes. Provide allergen information for non-prepacked items and emphasise allergens on pre-packed labels. The Food Standards Agency offers comprehensive allergen guidance.

Packaging & Promotions That Work (Responsibly)

A warm welcome works well as an "on arrival" serve, offering guests a Spiced Apple (zero-proof) or Mulled Wine. For gifting, consider limited-run bottled cocktails, but check your labelling and off-sales permissions first. When it comes to content ideas, short, vertical videos of batching, garnishing or glass prep perform well on social media and can inspire both your team and your customers.

Make This Your Most Profitable Festive Season Yet

Getting your Christmas drinks menu right isn't just about creating delicious serves, it's about building a profitable, compliant and guest-friendly offering that your team can execute smoothly even during your busiest shifts. 

A bit of smart batching, thoughtful pricing, and live reporting is all it takes to turn your Christmas drinks into a real profit win. And the best part? You can do that while still serving the kind of cosy, memorable experiences guests look forward to every year.