Everybody has their seasonal rituals – this year, give them a tweak
There are certain Christmas drinking traditions that can never be broken, even if they vary from family to family. The early-morning Christmas Day fizz, the Christmas Eve G&T, the late-night Boxing Day card-game cognac or calvados… we all have drinks with their precise moment in the festivities. But there’s room even within these fixed points to experiment a little, to try out a new producer or a different approach to a particular drink or style. Take that quintessentially festive combination, port and stilton. I might at first think there was something missing if the cheese came out after Christmas dinner without a bottle of tawny (such as Aldi’s bargain Maynard’s 10 Year Old Tawny; £9.99), late-bottled vintage (Waitrose’s robustly fruity 2010; £10.99) or vintage (the mellow mature single-quinta of Taylor’s Quinta de Terra Feita 1995; £26, Marks & Spencer). But a glass of the slightly lighter (16.5% v 20% abv) sweet fortified reds of France’s Roussillon region such as Maury (Waitrose Seriously Plummy Grande Réserve Maury NV; £10.99) or Banyuls (Domaine La Tour Vieille Banyuls Réserva; £19.75, Yapp) would soon dispel any disappointment, as would the very smart Blackdown elderberry port, made from elderberries scavenged in the South Downs (£25, blackdowncellar.co.uk).
There are other lighter choices that, as well as standing up well to blue cheese, are less likely to leave you nodding off in front of the flatscreen. Just as good, in different ways, are British beers and ciders. I’m thinking of dark ales such as the rich chocolate and coffee intensity of Anspach & Hobday The Porter (£3.20, Oddbins) or the tangy, red-fruited and ruby port-coloured Devon farmhouse cider with sloe and elderberry brewed by Sandford Orchards for M&S (£2.40).
There's that most stubbornly popular of all Christmas drinks, the waste of good champagne that is buck’s fizz
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