We’re way beyond nogs and ciders, mulled this and hot-buttered that. With a mind-boggling array of intoxicants at their fingertips, today’s savvy bartenders can whip up a whole host of cocktails to weatherproof your innards even as they whet your winter appetite. What follows is just a sampling of the sugar plums currently dancing in the heads of local mixologists.

Excelsior may be hot, hot, hot, but "bar chef" (as Lydia Shire calls him) Pelle Johansson has frost on the brain when he concocts his apple-pie martini ($11–$12; exact price to be determined). Blending apple vodka with green-apple liqueur, Licor 43 (a vanilla digestif from Spain), and a drop of heavy cream (plus a spot of pineapple juice "to smooth the flavors over"), it offers the taste of Thanksgiving without the holiday’s furor — something to be thankful for indeed as you sip away in the restaurant’s suave bar, quiet, relaxed, and blessedly alone.

Excelsior, however, is hardly alone in its appreciation of the autumnal aura an apple tang imparts. Take the Polynesian-themed Tiki Room, where the sweet-apple twist ($8) bobs about in a sea of tropical sippers. Halloween’s candied apples clearly serve as the drink’s inspiration, which mixes two kinds of schnapps — butterscotch and sour apple — with Nivole, a sparkling Italian dessert wine. At Whiskey Park, Mr. Cindy Crawford’s sprawling Park Plaza joint, sour-apple schnapps also lends the definitive top note, in this case to the smoky-apple martini ($11), for which Chivas Regal 12-year (a triple-blended Scotch) and bitters provide a robust base. It’s garnished with a slice of apple — just as the wet pear ($13), another noteworthy fall-forward drink from the Park, is garnished with a wedge of its eponymous harvest fruit. Combining pear-infused gin, pear nectar, and a drizzle of simple syrup, it puts pear on a par with apple as far as fall flavors go.

But apple still reigns at the Living Room, as the dominant flavor in its namesake cocktail. The Living Room martini ($10.50) contains not one but three apple-based beverages — vodka, schnapps, and cider — adding spiced rum for extra kick and a cinnamon stick for swizzle. Manager Kyla Calcagno also saves some praise for the seasonal savor of the chocolate-kiss martini ($10.50); as if the combination of vanilla vodka, Godiva white-chocolate liqueur, and milk weren’t comforting enough, the drink comes in a glass swirled with chocolate syrup, so that you get a "kiss" from the rim "that warms you up from the inside out." (A feeling to which your surroundings, distinguished by warm, deep-red hues and cushions galore, no doubt contribute.)

Over at the hushed, darkened, intimate City Bar in the Lenox Hotel, meanwhile, head bartender Trina Sturm makes a similar claim for the signature bourbon infusion ($10) she calls "Christmas in a glass." When caramelized Turkish figs, Chinese cinnamon, and vanilla beans are steeped in Maker’s Mark, the effect is indeed warmly festive — it’s not unlike drinking some saucy English pudding. If you’d just as soon drink cookies, however, the bar’s rum infusion ($10) just so happens to contain cardamom and ginger, traditional seasonings for holiday baked goods (with a little lemon peel thrown in for good measure).

Speaking of Christmas, Boston Billiard Club invites you to "meet Santa in shorts!" with the purchase of its Candy Cane ($6). Whatever hallucinations it may or may not induce, the ice-cream concoction will certainly touch off Yuletide flashbacks on your tongue. With crème de cacao, crème de menthe, peppermint schnapps, and a scoop of old-fashioned vanilla, it’s a souvenir of all the sweet treats that used to come but once a year — until, that is, you were old enough to suck them down whenever you darn-well pleased, so much the better in the form of a stiff drink.

Of course, if Santa were to make his rounds wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, he’d have difficulty fitting anything more than a couple of substandard hazelnuts in that sack of his. For real below-zero imbibing, Billiard offers its Cosmo-not ($7): "What the Russians have for breakfast." A delicious, dessert-quality confection of Stoli Razberi, peachtree schnapps, and cranberry juice served with a sugared rim, this drink will help stave off the most steppe-like of winter chills. And if you drink enough of them, you’ll fulfill your recommended daily intake of vitamin C. No more sniffles!

On a more sober, if ultimately happy, note, the Audubon Circle Elephant Walk is likewise just as you remember it (or nearly), having recently reopened its doors for the first time since a major January fire forced a lengthy closure. The cocktail menu, however, is brand new, and includes two drinks that feature Ciroc, a French "snap-frost vodka" — which sounds like just the thing to have on hand in case of fire, not to mention the ultimate cold-weather nip. Of course, since it’s distilled (five times, to be exact) from grapes, it’s not technically a vodka. But the Elephant Walk’s Ciroc French martini ($8.50), which lacks either gin or vermouth, isn’t technically a martini, so we won’t quibble. What the Ciroc French martini is is Ciroc combined with Chambord — a raspberry liqueur — and pineapple juice, while the Cirque du Soleil ($8.50) is Ciroc with orange liqueur (namely Grand Marnier), orange juice, and Sprite. Each has a punchy, rejuvenating quality one might associate with the perfect New Year’s quaff — pointing to better luck for the restaurant, one hopes, than the last.

We now move on to Kenmore Square, where seafood spot Great Bay has gone great guns since opening in the late spring; flush with such success, Greg McIntosh’s new fall cocktails reap the flavor of the harvest. The Cranberry Bog ($9), for one, does all the picking for you. Served shaken straight up, the drink brims with the sour tang of cranberry vodka and cranberry juice smoothed over by orange Cointreau. The sugar-rimmed Belle de Brillet sidecar ($9), meanwhile, infuses a timeless cocktail with a distinctly seasonal note via pear cognac — cognac being, according to McIntosh, the most "compelling" of liquors come cooler weather. Lest we require some plausible excuse to imbibe.

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthtobias@earthlink.net . Additional reporting by Chris Wright.