Hot Beverage Season!!!
GO GET YOUR MUG!!!
The weather is cooling down, and it’s time to put something hot in your mug! I love that about this time of year, don’t you? Below, you will find a true hodgepodge of my thoughts and feelings on various hot drinks, a few old memories, and a few simple recipes. Truly a disjointed newsletter, but hopefully a warm and comforting one!
Coffee
To be honest, I’m not really a coffee person. I decided it would be criminal to skip over the King of The Hot Bevs, however, so here we are! While I don’t have a lot of intel on the topic, I do have a fun memory about coffee (or rather what a 14 year old wants coffee to be).
If you grew up in the 90s, you may recall that the concept of the coffee shop (very loosely defined) became extremely attractive to teens, almost entirely because of the show “Friends.” If you grew up in the Midwest at that time, you may also recall the rise of the youth group coffee shop. Christian teens began running “coffee shops” on weekends to give other teens something safe and fun to do (and to get them to join the youth group).
I lovingly worked my butt off at one such youth group coffee shop for two years: The Java Lounge. We filled the church basement with Goodwill furniture, games, floor lamps, and area rugs. Every Friday and Saturday night we would open from something like 6pm to 12am. There was live music, basketball in the parking lot, and a whole “coffee shop” menu: coffee, soda, candy bars, and Papa John’s Pizza by the slice. But the thing that made us a real, legit, grown up coffee shop was the mocha cappuccino. We made and sold dozens (maybe hundreds) of them every night for $1. They were delicious. Everyone wanted one. Heck, everyone wanted three.
Within the last year or so, someone from high school mentioned on Facebook that they really missed the Java Lounge mocha cappuccinos. A sea of 40-somethings chimed in to agree and hypothesize about what had been in them. And I got to be the hero that knew the answer! I’ll share the recipe with you now, and you can run and make one: A Java Lounge mocha cappuccino (the most secret of recipes) is 4oz of hot coffee and 4oz of pre-made chocolate milk, topped with whipped cream and Hershey syrup. That’s it. And you know what? They’re still damn good.
Tea
I love tea. I love the taste of it, and I love the ritual of making it.
I don’t have many opportunities at this moment in my life, but when given the chance, I love to get out the tea set and really do it right:
I set the table with sugar and fresh cream. Each setting gets a saucer, a tea spoon, and one of my mismatched, thrifted Noritake tea cups.
I boil the water in the kettle on the stove. I fill the teapot with boiling water, and cover it with a towel.
I bring the kettle back to a boil as the ceramic tea pot (which my mom bought as an anniversary gift for her parents as a child) heats up.
Once it’s hot, I drain the teapot, add the loose-leaf tea, and fill it with fresh boiled water. I cover it with the towel again.
The tea (usually English breakfast) steeps for 3-4 minutes. Anything longer than 7 minutes causes a chemical reaction that makes the tea bitter.
At three minutes, I fill each tea cup, pouring the tea through a lovely silver strainer, leaving enough room for cream and sugar.
Honestly, I’m now relaxed just having written that out. We really do need to have a tea party sometime soon.
If you are in the market for some truly great tea, I have three recommendations:
The Montana Tea and Spice Co - This mom & pop operation produces my two favorite herbal tea blends of all time: Evening in Missoula (chamomile, rosehips, raspberry leaf, star anise, and other herbs and spices) and Night on Glacier Bay (licorice root, cardamom, lemon grass, and cinnamon with papaya, strawberry, and orange flavors). You can buy them many places online. Here is a link to their products on Liquid Planet.
Grandma’s Soap & Stuff - Grandma is a reenactor who sells soaps, other 18th century toiletry items, and certified organic loose-leaf tea. Her tea is rad. The rooibos with vanilla is the best I’ve ever had. I recently taste tested three or four other brands in an attempt to find a backup, and nothing compared. You can peruse her site here.
D&Tea - Yes, it is a Dungeons & Dragons themed tea company. We discovered them at the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo last year, and their blends are fantastic. The Palace Elixir (jasmine, green tea, blueberries, and hibiscus) is a fantastic pick-me-up tea, and the Genasian Seas (Ceylon black tea, Sencha green tea, papaya, strawberry, mango, marigold petals, hibiscus, lemongrass, rose hip, orange peel, cinnamon, and rose petals) is absolutely delicious. I’m excited to try all of the other blends sometime soon. You can check out their site here.
Cocoa
If I’m going to buy cocoa, my number one choice is Abuelita. The instant is quite good, but the real deal is making it from the tablets. Highly recommend.
When I was a kid, my Mom would make homemade hot cocoa on occasion. Isn’t it odd how we never think to do that? It’s not particularly hard! All you do is heat up the desired amount of milk on the stove (I use whole milk), and whisk in equal parts unsweetened cocoa powder (baking cocoa) and white sugar. I would start with 1/4 cup of each, and then keep adding until it looks/tastes right. Then you add a cap full of vanilla extract, and whisk the hell out of it until its blended. THAT'S IT. You can add marshmallows or whipped cream to each cup, but do whatever’s in your heart. You should go make this right now. It’s a game changer.
And All the Rest
Hot Mulled Cider
It’s so easy, and it immediately makes you feel like you’re in a Hallmark holiday movie. You just heat up delicious apple cider, and you let it simmer with cinnamon sticks, orange slices, and cloves. You can put them in a tea ball or cheese cloth, or you can totally skip that step. It’s criminal that we aren’t doing this every night, isn’t it?
Glögg (Hot Mulled Wine)
Honestly, the recipe is basically just mulled cider with wine instead of cider. It feels like there should be more to it than that, right? It isn’t even a specific wine! Just any dry red. You can also add a splash of brandy, a few raisins, and/or a little sugar if you want to tweak it a bit.
If you happen to live in the Chicago area, I recommend picking up a bottle at Simon’s Tavern in Andersonville, or just stopping there to grab a mug of the stuff. It’s tradition!
Hot Water
You think I’m joking, but I’m not. Years ago, an odd-duck relative-of-a-relative asked the server at a restaurant to just bring her a mug of hot water, and we all looked at her like she had ordered boiled shoe for dinner. But you know what? I get it now. Especially when your throat is hurting. Sometimes it isn’t about the flavor; it’s about the heat. A warm mug in your hands and hot drink going down the hatch. What’s not to love?
Cinnamon Tea
Years ago, my Aunt Isabelle mentioned that her family had a long tradition of boiling cinnamon sticks and drinking the tea to reduce pain from menstrual cramps. I can confirm that it both works and is delicious! I had always halfway assumed that the effectiveness was psychosomatic, but the Google tells me otherwise! It’s also high in antioxidants! So dang! Let’s all start drinking cinnamon tea!
Golden Milk
This is my current favorite drink to order at a coffee shop. Not everyone has it on the menu, but it’s starting to pop up here and there. Golden milk (sometimes called a turmeric latte) is a caffeine-free, anti-inflammatory drink that originated in India.
It’s simple to make at home as well:
Simmer (do not boil) 2 cups of milk on the stove (you can use any dairy or nondairy milk)
Add 1 tsp of turmeric, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon, and a pinch of black pepper. Whisk and whisk and whisk until it all incorporates (it’s never going to fully dissolve).
Add 1 TBSP of honey (or maple syrup, but I think honey is better) and 1/2 TBSP of a fat (coconut oil or ghee are both good) - This is important because turmeric is fat soluble, so it helps your body absorb it and get that good anti-inflammatory magic.
Add a pinch of any (or all) of these optional flavors: salt, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and/or vanilla. Or skip this step and just start drinking it!
And Finally… Hot Dr. Pepper
Dr. Pepper was invented by a pharmacist in Texas in 1885, and it became a true phenomenon at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 (along side the ice cream cone). Things were going great until 1956, when the company president, Wesby Parker, said “Dang it, guys! People are only drinking Dr. Pepper when it’s hot outside! What about the other six months?! How do we get at that sweet sweet coffee money?! Wait, I know!!! WE MAKE IT HOT.” And thus… Hot Dr. Pepper was invented.
Last New Year’s Eve, I wanted to give hot Dr. Pepper a try, and a few cousins humored me. We followed the official Dr. Pepper instructions: Heat the Dr. Pepper on the stove to 180°F, and then pour it over a thin slice of lemon in each mug. (We stopped here, but if you add a shot of rum, it becomes a cocktail called a “Schuss-Boomer.”)
You know what? It wasn’t half bad. The act of heating the soda up kills most of the carbonation, and (with the lemon slice) the result is a lot like drinking a hot sweet tea. I give it a 6 out of 10 (might hot DP again). Let me know if you decide to give it a try! I would love to know what you think!
A Few More Treasures for the Road
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For whatever reason, the University of Oregon hosts a PDF dictionary of 1920s slang on their website, and I love it! I really thought I would scroll through this list and be surprised by all of the unfamiliar phrases, but it’s wild how many of these have withstood the test of time. Sure, you may sound a little folksy saying them, but they do still exist in the world. Of course, there were still some oddballs on the list as well. I love the idea of “bimbo” meaning a tough guy. Here’s the list! Let me know what your favorites are!
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Y’all remember the song “Fish Heads”? It was a Doctor Demento classic by a band called Barnes & Barnes. For those of you who grew up in the St. Louis area in the early 90s, you may recall that it played several times a day on the Imagination Station.
Well, last week the algorithm sent me an article about how bonkers Bill Paxton’s career was, and to my great surprise, I learned that BILL PAXTON DIRECTED THE “FISH HEADS” MUSIC VIDEO. WHAT?!
Having never seen the video before, I looked it up on Youtube. It’s just as weird as I had expected it to be, and there’s good old Bill in the video! Here’s a link, for those of you excited to check it out. If you are just now hearing about “Fish Heads” for the first time, this one might not be for you.
Thanks, gang! Until we meet again!
I see your Hot Dr. Pepper and raise you Hot RC Cola. But also "might hot DP again"?
Also, the Imagination station rocked. I'm sure it is responsible for an unusually high concentration of Millennial Weird Al fans in the St. Louis area.