Halloween and Bonfire Night are over for another year –  now it’s four more Sundays until December. What to fill them with? Warming drinks and River on iPlayer, we say.

And here’s a hot piece of toddy you might like to try for yourself. It contains spices that will fill your kitchen with autumnal/Christmassy smells and you can drink it ‘nice’ or ‘naughty’.

Ingredients: 1 litre of apple juice (more if you’re sharing with more than 6 people); cinnamon stick; 3 star anise; 2 cloves; orange and lemon slices; something medicinal – we used dark rum for a fruity kick but whisky would work just as well

Method:

Slice an orange and lemon into wheels and gather together your spices

Pour apple juice into pan and turn on hob to a moderate heat.

Plonk in your fruit and spices and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes

If you’re going medicinal, pour a glug of your something naughty into a glass mug

– or just any old mug if you haven’t got the glass variety

Now ladle in your spiced apple juice along with some of the fruit slices, for a grey-day take on sangria

Remove mugs of hot spiced apple from kitchen, along with yourself. Position yourself on sofa, grab a throw and cover yourself with it. Find gritty yet poignant thriller on catch-up TV. Slurp hot spiced apple.

And continue until glass is finished. Then return to kitchen and repeat.

What are your favourite seasonal tipples? We’re thinking of trying a boozy take on a hot chocolate next. It may or may not involve Baileys. Watch this space…