Hot Toddy

Fittingly, as the temperature plunged on Tuesday I caught my first serious cold of the winter. I get cocky at times, and find myself thinking ‘Wow, I haven’t gotten sick all winter.’ I attributed my good health to yoga and swimming, the better food I’m trying to eat, the relatively clean and stress free living I’ve recently enjoyed. Smug, I went to yoga Tuesday with a bad feeling nagging the back of my throat and an achiness I thought would go away. It didn’t. Yoga on Tuesday was the last time I went out till after lunch on Thursday. Wednesday was a blurry mess. I didn’t get dressed, got out of the recliner rarely, went through a whole box of Kleenex, and drug myself around the house like a whipped dog. It’s amazing how much you can sleep when you feel that lousy. I had tea and toast, read the paper, slept, had soup for lunch, slept, read my kindle, slept, had some supper and went to bed early. Quite a day.

Retirement makes being sick easy. There was a time when if I was sick I would get up early, check my calendar, get on the phone, talk to different people to cover things for me, spend time looking at e mail anyway, field a few calls. It was almost easier to go in rather than take off, and lots of times I did, probably infecting my co workers with whatever kind of crud I had. Wednesday after writing one e mail and sending one text I had totally cancelled my day’s activity. And Wednesday was a relatively busy day for a guy who doesn’t work. I regretted most missing my time in the Y pool. I’d made a number of consecutive long swims without fail and hated to break the string. But I got over it fairly quickly.

My wife took good care of me. All she really asked was that I pick up all those used Kleenex. I stuffed them in the blue plastic bag the Tribune came in. It almost didn’t hold them all by the end of the day. She made several recommendations for things I should take. When this happens to her she takes Dayquil and Nyquil, the big orange and green over the counter capsules with all the stuff in them. Chemical decongestants, expectorants, fever reducers, and so on. No one knows what that stuff really is. I tend to avoid it myself.

As word got out that I was sick and had a bad cough a new home remedy came via the internet to my wife’s smart phone. Slather your feet in Vicks Vaporub, put on a pair of socks, and wrap your feet in a blanket. Takes your cough away in no time. Seems odd doesn’t it? After my wife realized I wasn’t going for the Dayquil/Nyquil routine she suggested Theraflu, which is a sort of tea with all the stuff in it. I declined that too.

“I’ll go to the store for you if you want. Get you some Vicks Vaporub.”

When I was a child my Mom used Vicks Vaporub in some radical applications you won’t find prescribed on the label. I won’t say it was awful but the Vicks deal appealed to me very little. I told her she could stay home.

“You mean you’re not going to take anything?”

“Well not that stuff. I’ll have a hot toddy.”

“Oh yeah,” she said derisively. “Hot toddies. Well make ‘em yourself.”

Hot toddies are a tried and true treatment of colds and maladies of all kinds. Before there was shrink wrap, and TV advertising, and a general reliance on pills and drugs to cure all our ills, hot toddies were relieving symptoms of cold and flu all across America. Ingredients for this amazing remedy were commonly found in all households, save for those of the tea totallers who enjoyed such influence in America in the first part of the twentieth century. Here’s all it takes to be on the road to recovery via hot toddy.

Water-not much, less than a half an inch, in the bottom of a small saucepan. Maybe the one you cook your oatmeal in.

Lemon-whatever you have, but preferably the squeezings of half a one. Don’ worry about the seeds, and when you’re done squeezing toss the remainder in the pan.

Honey-plenty. If your honey is stacked inside a plastic bear give yourself the equivalent of the amount of honey between his eyes and his mouth. If it’s in a jar start with two tablespoons.

Cinnamon-if you have the sticks, the little rolled up pieces of bark, throw in two. If not, put in less than a teaspoon of ground. Try to incorporate it into the honey so it doesn’t float on top.

Whiskey, or one of its brown cousins-this is the heart and soul of the hot toddy and deserves special attention. After much experimentation I find I prefer a Kentucky bourbon or whiskey of fairly high proof. I’ve used both scotch and rye, and Bushmill’s Irish which comes in a close second, but for my palate it’s hard to beat the basic American good stuff. Old Grand Dad is the hot toddy standard but I was fresh out. I did however find a bottle of Bulleit Bourbon in the back of the liquor cabinet and put it next to the stove for the duration. You might consider keeping a bottle in reserve just for this purpose. You never know when a cold may strike. I plan to replace that bottle on my very next trip to Herman’s Liquor Store. I might pick up Old Grand Dad just for safety's sake.

The brown cousins are suitable replacements-brandy, cognac, dark rum. White rum, which you might think of as an appropriate substitute, ruins the presentation. It just doesn’t look right. Hot toddies are brown. That’s just the way it goes.

Add enough whiskey or other brown spirits to the mixture in your sauce pan to fill it half full. If it’s over half, that’s OK.

Light the burner, adjust the flame to somewhere between full on and half lit, and stir your toddy. Get that cinnamon stick twirling around on the bottom, swish the honey around with the lemon, let the whiskey mix with the water, and watch as bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan. Get your nose close to the toddy. This is part of the therapeutic process. Get that nice smell up into your nose. It will help clear you out. Under no circumstances allow your toddy mix to boil. Boiling reduces the alcohol content, and that won’t do. Now taste.

If the lemon taste dominates, add more whiskey.

If it seems a little watery, add more whiskey.

If the honey had created a situation where the sweetness is too much, add more whiskey.

Actually, a good rule of thumb is-add more whiskey. You must do this as you heat the mixture, as adding cold whiskey at the end takes down the temperature of your toddy which will result in, rather than a hot toddy, a tepid toddy. Get that whiskey in there and get it hot.

Before it boils, but after it steams, turn the heat under your toddy mixture off and with a ladle pour a generous portion of your newly created cold remedy into a porcelain coffee cup rather than a glass. The cup will keep your drink warmer. And not using a glass will prevent your wife or other family members from readily monitoring your toddy consumption as the day goes on. It may alarm them. The proper response to expressions of concern regarding what may be perceived excessive hot toddy use, medicinal use mind you, is this.

“Who has this cold, you or me?”

I suggest keeping the saucepan on the stove and adding various ingredients throughout the day as needed so that you have a continuous supply of hot toddy available at all times. Reheat when necessary. If there was a dosage recommendation for hot toddy like those that come with manufactured products it would be “take liberally, as needed, until desired results are achieved.”

I began the hot toddy treatment Tuesday afternoon, continued it throughout the day on Wednesday, and by Thursday felt 100% better. Taking a hot shower and getting dressed Thursday added to my recovery. Sometimes you just have to soldier on.

And there you go. Stay warm. Winter will soon be over. But if a cold strikes, know that there is a home remedy at your disposal that promises to relieve your symptoms in a most enjoyable way. Try the hot toddy. You’ll like it.