12 Best Fresh Garnishes For Warm Winter Drinks

As the weather gets colder, there's little as comforting as wrapping up in a soft blanket with a warm winter drink. The mixture of something hot, decadent, perhaps spiced, sweet, and delicious is going to make you swoon for more cold afternoons to experience all that bliss and coziness. The best thing is that there's a warm winter drink for everyone's taste, whether you like a classic hot chocolate, mulled wine, spiced cider, pumpkin spice latte, or chai tea. Nowadays you can find even more elaborate recipes for hot drinks to try like rose lattes, lavender milk, hot boba, and much, much more. All these exciting recipes deserve to be served in style, and the way your drink looks is just as important as the process of making it. It's a major part of the fun!

You eat (in this case drink) with your eyes first, and we all want cute and elegant drinks leading us into a more festive spirit for the upcoming holidays. This is where garnishes come into play. Garnishes are a fun and easy way to spruce up your drinks, and it's usually always better to go for fresh garnishes. While many people garnish purely for looks and to give clues as to what's in the drink, a great garnish even adds to the drink's flavor and experience. There are so many ways to garnish drinks and you can let your creativity run wild. I'm a recipe developer and love making elaborate winter drinks for both pleasure and work. In my experience, a fresh garnish can be key to making a drink feel more special, fancy, and desirable. Here are some of the best fresh garnishes to use for warm winter drinks.

When it comes to garnishes there are two camps: There's adding things directly into the drink (they tend to float on top) and then there's decorating or garnishing your cup or glass. Don't worry, this doesn't entail making fancy sauce patterns on the inside of your glass that you might be intimidated to try (although those are also relatively easy to achieve and work great, too!) The rim of your glass is actually prime real estate for a garnish, especially a tasty one. We already do this with cocktails like margaritas as people add salt or sugar to the rim. With a hot drink, you can easily make a tasty garnish with chocolate.

Chocolate rims are great because they look pretty and you get a little taste of chocolate with every sip. Your hot drink slowly melts the chocolate with every bit of contact, which makes it melt at a good, slow pace, and it will likely last until the end of your drink. Especially if you take a sip from different sides of your cup.

A chocolate rim is a no-brainer for hot chocolate, but it will add more indulgence to many drinks, including coffee lattes, chai lattes, and even mulled wine, or Irish coffee. You can do an easy chocolate rim with chocolate sauce, or for a hard chocolate rim, you can use melted chocolate and then chill your glass/cup. Add the liquid chocolate (whether it's melted chocolate or sauce) to a flat plate and then turn your cup upside down and press it into the chocolate, making sure the chocolate is all over the circumference of the cup. It doesn't have to be incredibly even, as any parts with excess chocolate will drip a little and look even more yummy. 

Citrus plays a big part in winter eating and drinking, especially as it's usually the season for all types, including oranges, tangerines, mandarins, and more. They are packed full of bright flavors and vary in sweetness, sourness, and bitterness in the case of grapefruit. They also are so great to turn into candied citrus treats to snack on, or even better, use as a garnish for your drink. Fresh orange slices work too, but there's something about candied citrus that's even more elegant and satisfying. They're sweet, but "candy-ing" makes the skin edible, so you have a hint of bitterness from the peel that adds a little complexity, rather than straight sweetness.

They're also delightfully chewy. Biting on a piece in between sips or at the end of the drink can be a treat, especially as it not only infuses your drink with a hint of fruity citrus flavor but will also absorb some of the drink itself. Save your citrus peels to make candied citrus, or candy entire slices for your drinks, baking, and many more applications. Use some as a garnish for this fragrant hot mulled mead recipe.

Whipped cream on a warm winter drink is a classic, but that doesn't make it any less wonderful. Yes, cold foam has taken over slightly, but it's basically just a type of heavier whipped cream with new marketing. Whipped cream is easier to make yourself, and that light, fluffy cloud of velvetiness sitting on top of a hot beverage is perfection in its own right. As it melts, it adds extra richness to your drink, making it decadent and exactly what you want on a cold day. It's an effortless way to garnish all types of drinks, from coffee to milo, to a gingerbread latte.

The best thing about whipped cream is that its neutral taste means you can flavor it in all types of ways to make it even more delicious. While you're whipping the cream, throw in some pumpkin pie spice, to give it an aromatic flavor to bolster your next PSL. Or why not make a vanilla-flavored whipped cream to go with almost anything? Why not add a drop or two of peppermint extract to top off your hot chocolate to start getting into the Christmas season mood? The possibilities for flavoring your whipped cream are endless, and it's a truly low-effort, high-reward trick for making exciting warm drinks this winter.

If you love a fruity garnish, then you should consider using sour cherries. Okay, adding "a cherry on top" is not exactly a novel idea, but using sour cherries is a different experience from the sickly sweet taste of the usual maraschino cherries. Sure, we might have all loved them in our childhood, but their artificial color and over-the-top sweetness make drinks look a little outdated and they don't feel very adult. Instead, sour cherries add a burst of juicy tartness to your drink.

Because they are sour, they go great with sweet and spiced drinks like mulled wine or a boozy spiced German gluhwein that has warm spices like star anise, cinnamon, and cloves. Sour cherries play with those flavors nicely and add a new dynamic to the drink. Usually, you'll find citrus as the main fruit element in gluhwein, so sour cherries give it a new twist. They go especially well with white wine gluhwein and add a pop of deep red color to the otherwise pale drink. You can add them straight into your drink and let them float like little plump, juicy, jewels, or you can string some onto a toothpick and rest them on top.

Hot honey has been all the rage for the last couple of years, and it's so good, the hype isn't dying down anytime soon. The balance of spiciness and sweetness mellows out the extreme ends of both flavors, making tangy, sweet, and hot liquid gold. It's an obvious topping for fried chicken, biscuits, pizza, and even ice cream, but it's also a great garnish for a tasty hot drink. If you love spicy foods, you're bound to love spicy drinks, too. You could even make a fancy hot honey rim with extra chile flakes for a hot toddy, or enjoy it with some hot apple cider.

Another option is to make a spicy hot chocolate. Chocolate and chili are a match made in heaven and one way to get some heat into a decadent hot chocolate is by drizzling on some hot honey. Keep your honey in the freezer for a little while first so it solidifies a bit to make a solid drizzle on top of a foamy cup of hot cocoa. It will melt into your drink as you sip and make it incredibly more-ish.

Chilly weather makes you crave the most decadent things. When you feel cold, you are often hungrier too, so warming up with a satisfying warm drink can be just what the doctor ordered. When it comes to warm drinks, we want something thick, creamy, and sweet. This is the time of experimenting with different lattes and one that has been on my rotation recently is a pistachio latte. It requires pistachio cream to make a rich and nutty latte that's the stuff of dreams. If you get your hands on some pistachio cream or make your own, it's one of the yummiest things to garnish any milky drink with. You'll likely want to eat it with a spoon like you would peanut butter, but a little dollop of pistachio cream on a regular latte, a rose-infused coffee, or some golden milk will make your winter dreams come true.

There are different ways to make pistachio cream, but an easy way is to treat it like any other nut butter. Use shelled, raw pistachios to make pistachio butter and blend them until they form a paste. Then you can sweeten them with honey, and add some oil to make their consistency a little more thin and pliable. You can roast them first to deepen their nutty flavor, but it's not a must.

Making a beautiful-looking drink can be a special part of treating yourself and unleashing your creativity. Nowadays there are so many interesting ways to garnish a drink, and you have new creations coming out all the time. If you have a favorite cafe, you can often find inspiration from how they decorate their drinks. Recently I came across the idea to use freeze-dried strawberries to decorate a latte. Freeze-dried strawberries — or any berry for that matter — can make really beautiful garnishes, but I love to grind them into a powder.

They crumble with such incredible ease that you can lightly pound them with the bottom of a cup and you'll have the most vibrant red powder that looks like something you'd find in an art store. But this powder is totally edible and tastes good, too. I fill up a spice shaker and either sprinkle it on top of the frothy milk of my pistachio, or matcha latte to make red speckles, or I make a pink line with it in my milk.

If you want to use it on non-milky drinks, you can also make a strawberry rim for a hot boozy drink or a fruity cider. Dip the mouth of your cup into some honey first, which will act as the glue. Then dip it into some strawberry dust to create a pretty pink decoration along the rim of your glass.

Simple garnishes can be just as good as elaborate ones, especially as they're a lot easier to throw on and it saves you time to enjoy your warm drink whenever you please. Fresh mint is an effortless but fragrant garnish to use on any warm drink. It adds a little flair and a lovely fresh aroma to your drink as you sip. For this, always opt for fresh mint over dried, as dried mint has a whole different flavor experience.

Mint is a traditional addition to hot tea drinks in the Middle East and North Africa, and it is often added to cups of black or green tea to close out a meal. As a North African, it was something I had daily. It's refreshing and is believed to aid in digestion. It'll make your warm cider or hot toddy taste even better, but don't be afraid to add it to milky drinks, too. It would work great with a beetroot latte, or why not find some fresh spearmint to put in your hot cocoa for a peppermint hot chocolate?

As someone with North African heritage, I'm intimately familiar with edible roses and rose-flavored foods. Rose water is a staple in my pantry to flavor syrups for desserts, and many other uses. Along with rose water, I always keep a jar of dried, edible rose petals in my pantry to use for decoration. They're dramatic and oh-so-beautiful, sprinkled onto baked goods and hot drinks. I love making a rose latte and adding some rose petals on top for a striking cup of rose-scented coffee. Rose and coffee make for an incredibly perfumed flavor combination, and you can easily make a rose latte by adding a drop or two of rose water to your regular latte, or even melting a piece of rose Turkish delight into your cappuccino.

However, you don't need to make a rose drink to use rose petals as a garnish. They look great on most drinks, and in dried form, they don't have a strong flavor. A mild floral aroma might be present, but it won't dominate your drink. You can use rose petals to decorate a pistachio latte, a masala chai latte, or even make a different kind of rose latte using beetroot powder and having cute pink milk to sip on.

There are so many ways to use a coconut, and this fruit gives us everything from coconut oil to milk, water, cream, and dried coconut. Coconut flakes, which are slightly bigger pieces of dried coconut than desiccated or shredded coconut, are great to use as garnish for your drinks. They add flair and texture to your drink. Coconut goes especially well with anything creamy and would be delicious with a vanilla, white chocolate latte, or matcha latte.

Why not go coconut all the way and try a coconut latte? Using coconut milk, you can froth up a dreamy coconut coffee, then top it up with some coconut flakes. For more extravagance and more toasty winter flavors, give your coconut flakes a little bit of a roast in the oven. If they go a little brown and toasted, they'll give your drink a whole new dynamic, both in appearance and taste.

So many people have fond memories of making s'mores on a cold winter evening. Whether around a campfire or in the fireplace, making s'mores is a tradition that people carry with them into adulthood. Taking inspiration from these beloved treats, you can recreate a similar effect by adding some toasted marshmallows to your favorite warm beverage. Throwing some marshmallows into a creamy hot chocolate is indeed nothing new, but toasting them gives your drink an extra pizazz. And that toasted marshmallow flavor creates a campfire feel in a cup.

Using a blowtorch is the easiest way to achieve a toasted marshmallow topping, but if you don't have one, you can roast them under your broiler and then spoon them over your drink. Don't be limited to hot chocolate, as toasted marshmallows would make so many drinks more exciting. Try some over this boozy hot milk punch for an indulgent adult drink.

Cake pops are a fun way to get playful with garnishing your winter drink. There are so many directions you can go with flavors and decor, and it can be an easy way to turn a classic hot beverage into a special treat. Whether for Halloween, Christmas, or any themed party, cake pops are easy to decorate with faces, pumpkins, or cute little round ghosts. You can also make them simple and coat them with sprinkles, crushed Oreos, or even some fruity pebbles. They're just as fun for adults as they are for kids. As you sip your hot drink, you can take little bites of your cake pop, or even dunk them into the drink to melt the chocolate and moisten the cake.

Cake pops can be placed straight into your hot chocolate, hot malted milk, latte, or whatever warm winter drink you're having them with. They'll float around and look cute but also melt quickly, so only pop them in straight before serving. They're also great as popsicles which you can lay across the top of your drink sideways. If the popsicle stick is long enough, place it in the drink with the cake pop sticking out like a ball-topped straw.