Winter warming drinks to try after a frosty walk

There is a particular kind of Hertfordshire cold — the damp, patient sort that creeps through your gloves somewhere between the car park and the top of the first hill. It is a cold that demands a reward. And in this county, with its beechwoods, canal towpaths and flint-walled villages, the reward is almost always a mug of something hot, drunk slowly, ideally beside a fire that somebody else has laid.

Hot chocolate worth taking your gloves off for

Most hot chocolate is disappointing because it is made from powder and water and hope. Do it properly and it becomes a completely different drink. Start with whole milk — semi-skimmed works, but the fat is what carries the cocoa — and heat it gently in a pan. Do not let it boil; scalded milk tastes of nothing good.

For a single mug, chop or grate 30g of dark chocolate at around 70 per cent cocoa and whisk it into the warm milk off the heat. Add a pinch of salt, which sounds odd and isn't, and a quarter-teaspoon of vanilla extract if you have it. A little cornflour slaked in cold milk will thicken it to a drink that coats the back of a spoon.

Then comes the winter part. A cinnamon stick stirred in at the end, a grating of nutmeg, or — the best version for a really raw day — a small pinch of chilli powder and a quarter-teaspoon of ground ginger. If you are carrying this in a flask, preheat the flask with boiling water for two minutes first, tip it out, then fill. It will still be hot at Ivinghoe Beacon.

Spiced apple: the orchard county's answer to mulled wine

Hertfordshire has grown apples for centuries, and its farm shops and delis still trade in excellent cloudy juice. Mulled wine is lovely, but it is not what you want at three in the afternoon with another four miles to walk. Spiced apple is the sensible cousin — all the warmth and clove and none of the fog.

• One litre of good cloudy apple juice, not the clear stuff from concentrate.
• Two cinnamon sticks, four cloves, two star anise and a thumb of fresh ginger, sliced.
• A strip of orange peel and a tablespoon of honey, added at the end.
• Optional but excellent: a few dried apple rings and a sprig of rosemary, which makes it taste like a walk through a hedgerow.

Warm everything together for ten minutes without letting it boil, then strain. If you want an adult version, a slug of brandy or a dark spiced rum stirred in at the end will do it — but keep it modest if you are driving home from the common. The non-alcoholic version is genuinely just as good, and it travels beautifully in a flask.

A proper mug of locally roasted coffee

The county has a healthy crop of small-batch roasters these days, and there is something quietly satisfying about drinking coffee grown on the other side of the world but roasted fifteen minutes from where you are standing. If you are buying beans for a post-walk brew, look for a medium-to-dark roast with tasting notes of cocoa, hazelnut or dark fruit — brighter, fruitier roasts are wonderful in summer but can taste thin and sharp when you are cold and hungry.

For a flask, brew stronger than you would at home. A ratio of about 60g of coffee to one litre of water, brewed in a cafetière or filter and left to steep for four minutes, gives you something that survives the journey. Add a splash of milk before you pour it into the flask rather than after — cold milk dropped into a flask of hot coffee will drop the temperature of the whole thing by several degrees.

If you are making it at home for a group, warm the mugs. It is the oldest trick in hospitality and it makes an astonishing difference to how long the drink stays hot on a garden bench.

Where to walk, and where to thaw out afterwards

Some pairings work particularly well in winter. Ashridge and the woods around Berkhamsted give you beech avenues and long ridge views, with a town full of timber-framed cafés at the bottom. The Grand Union Canal towpath between Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead is flat, muddy and perfect in a frost, and there are canalside pubs where a hot chocolate arrives within four minutes of your coat coming off.

In the east of the county, the Cole Green Way out of Hertford is a gentle, traffic-free stretch of old railway line that suits a short afternoon loop, and Cassiobury Park in Watford combines broad paths with the canal and a decent chance of a coffee van still trading in January. Near St Albans, Verulamium Park and the River Ver give you a quick hour with the cathedral on the skyline, while Heartwood Forest near Sandridge is the place for a longer, quieter walk and a flask rather than a pub, since there is nothing much at the other end.

Small things that make a big difference

• Carry a flask, not a cup. Cardboard cups go cold in twelve minutes. A decent vacuum flask keeps a drink hot for four hours.
• Take a spare pair of socks in the boot. Wet feet undo a good drink faster than anything.
• Keep a bag of marshmallows in the glovebox. It sounds silly until the moment it doesn't.
• Order the drink before you sit down. A pub on a cold Saturday fills quickly, and the good window seats go to the organised.

Whichever you choose, the routine is the same: walk until your ears ache, come in, get your boots off, wrap your hands around something hot, and let the day settle. That, more than any particular recipe, is what a Hertfordshire winter is for.