The word for today is…
wassail (noun) – 1. (a) A salutation or toast given in drinking someone’s health or as an expression of goodwill at a festivity.
(b) The drink used in such toasting, commonly ale or wine spiced with roasted apples and sugar.
2. A festivity characterised by much drinking.
Source : The Free Dictionary
Etymology : Mid-12th century, from Old Norse ves heill “be healthy,” a salutation, from ves, imperative of vesa “to be” (see was) + heill “healthy,” from Proto-Germanic *haila-. Use as a drinking phrase appears to have arisen among Danes in England and spread to native inhabitants.
A similar formation appears in Old English wes þu hal, but this is not recorded as a drinking salutation. Sense extended circa 1300 to “liquor in which healths were drunk,” especially spiced ale used in Christmas Eve celebrations. Meaning “a carousal, reveling” first attested c. 1600. Wassailing “custom of going caroling house to house at Christmas time” is recorded from 1742.
