Put cider, apple brandy, ground cinnamon, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Slowly pour in cream, continuing to stir. Using a whisk or hand-held electric mixer on low speed, whip the syllabub until it is about to form soft peaks. The sooner you stop, the more drinkable it will be; whip longer and you’ll need spoons. Spoon it into festive glasses—I filled almost six— and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

SYLLABUB

Somehow this unusual word popped into my head as I was thinking about festive holiday drinks. I’d never had a syllabub but discovered in my research that it was a common indulgence in Britain at holiday times. Its odd name, which reminds me of the syllabus I’d get at the start of every college course, might come from the combination of the words sille, a French wine used in the drink, and bub, Old English slang for a bubbly drink. I also read about a version called “farmer’s syllabub,” in which most of the ingredients were put into a bucket then placed beneath a cow, its jets of milk frothing the concoction perfectly.

My tasters loved syllabub’s zesty freshness, some saying they couldn’t even detect its alcohol. Some wanted a spoon to eat rather than drink, it. Either way, it’s fast and fabulous. I used British food pro Nigella Lawson’s recipe, which calls for Calvados. I found Black Star Farm’s Apple Brandy an honorable substitute. I also used, as the dry hard cider, Tandem Ciders’ driest draught, Clear Conscience, made with Jonathan, Northern Spy and Winter Banana apples from local orchards. And while the British recipe calls for “double cream,” which is 48 percent fat and far richer than supermarket cream, our own Shetler heavy cream comes close at 42 percent fat.