(You have probably caught on by now that I am doing a 31 day challenge from BlogHer. If you haven’t then please check out the post for the past 20 days and you will see the theme of “hot”. I am beginning to wonder why I am doing this but I am sure it is making me a better person. Okay, I don’t believe that either but I am sticking to this challenge. )

(I do apologize for yesterday’s post. I was not feeling that great – RETURN OF THE GIANT SINUS INFECTION – and I started writing too late in the day. To be honest, I posted and then got into bed. So, I am sorry I took an easy way out yesterday. I will try very hard not to do it again. )

Welcome to my world of “hot”. Before I start on some fascinating aspect of something “hot”, I have a comment. I don’t think that I have looked up one” hot” thing that hasn’t had a musical band named after it. Really. It seems strange to me but I suppose that you would want people to think that you were a hot band and how better to get that across than to have the word “hot” in your band name.

But now I have digressed for three paragraphs in a row and I should get to my topic for the day. Are you ready?

Hot cocktails.

Okay, it is summer and I am not really about to have a hot toddy but I wanted to take a picture as illustration. I could even find a scarf to try and fool you into thinking it was winter.

I have never had a hot cocktail. I should have had one since I am from the Midwest (land of snow and ice) but I really don’t think I have.  That sounds odd even to me but that is the way it goes.

There are two cocktails that come to mind when I think of hot cocktails. The first is hot buttered rum. All can think of is those buttered rum lifesavers. Now, I actually like those but I know that for most people they are the lifesavers best left behind. I looked up how to make hot buttered rum and here is a recipe:

Ingredients –

1 small slice of butter

1 tsp. brown sugar

Optional spices to taste – ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, allspice

Vanilla extract

2 oz. dark rum

Hot water

Preparation –

Place the butter, sugar, and spices at the bottom of an Irish coffee glass or mug

Mix well

Pour in the rum and hot water

Stir

I know it sounds stupid but I really didn’t think that there would be butter in this drink. Live and learn. I did find it humorous that they say that this drink is a “delight around a fall campfire”. And for you romantics, it also says that you can put the drink together and then plunge a red hot poker in the glass. Hmmm. I don’t think I will try that method. That screaks of being done after too many drinks. And I don’t see it working out well.

The second drink is the hot toddy or hot totty. It seems to me that when I was in college that someone gave their version of a hot toddy to one of the dance majors when she felt sick and wanted to feel better before her final the next morning. Since it was a bunch of 19 year olds doing this, as you can guess, it did not work out well. I think that she forgot about her cold as she was “hugging the porcelain goddess” all night. She thought those toddies tasted pretty good until they didn’t.

So here is the recipe for the Hot Toddy.

Ingredients-

1 oz. brandy, whiskey or rum

1 tablespoon honey

¼ lemon

1 cup hot water

1 tea bag

Preparation-

Coat the bottom of a mug or Irish coffee glass with honey

Add the liquor and the juice of the lemon

On the side heat the water and put in the tea bag to make hot tea

Pour the steaming tea into the glass and stir

I know it is my warped way of thinking but what cracks me up right now is that they have videos on how to make these drinks. I think the instructions are pretty clear and easy, don’t you? Do you need a video to show you how?  People do love their video cameras, don’t they?

Do you drink hot cocktails? What is your favorite?

Thanks for reading!