Departs after little Dorothy knocked over hot drinks (7)
I believe the answer is:
toddies
'hot drinks' is the definition.
'toddies' can be an answer for 'drinks' (toddy is a kind of drink). I am not sure about the 'hot' bit.
'departs after little dorothy knocked over' is the wordplay.
'departs' becomes 'dies' (I've seen this before).
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'little dorothy' becomes 'dot' (nickname for Dorothy).
'knocked over' says the letters should be written backwards.
'dot' backwards is 'tod'.
'dies' put after 'tod' is 'TODDIES'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for toddies that I've seen is " Mixed drinks, may be hot".)