go on, have a hot toddy
/When it comes to food, alcohol, caffeine, dust—anything solid or liquid that goes in or near the body, anything that flies by or drips down—my family members have a reaction. We get food poisoning, sea sickness, air sickness, rashes.
When one of us travels we ask, “How’d it go?” We don’t mean did you have fun or great adventures? In my family, we mean did you embarrass yourself in front of friends, strangers? Did you have to disguise yourself in a hat and mustache?
For example, one wimpy relative had to receive oxygen on a flight after overdosing on a PowerBar. Disappointing, because PowerBars have now been added to our substances banned in public, reducing our choices to water and Gerber’s squash.
So, with wimpy ancestry, I made a fuss when it was suggested I try a hot toddy for a cold. I’ve never had an official hot toddy. No whiskey at all since falling dead drunk one night on a single Irish whiskey in my twenties. I had no desire to again be dragged from a bar while dressed in hot pink, thrown into a car, and relocated to my bed where I stayed for three days. I even lost an earring.
Nope, once was enough. And yet . . .
With everyone around complaining of some cough or sneeze, including me, I figured no better time to test if I could manage an old-fashioned home remedy without impacting every man, woman, and child in the Mid-Atlantic.
I picked up the idea from the massage therapist who was working on the stiff neck I got from coughing. A hot toddy, he said, is his secret weapon against clients who give him the sniffles. As soon as day is done, he runs home, mixes hot tea with lemon, honey, and a good shot of bourbon. “I shiver it out,” confided Joe. “It works every time, and it makes me feel really, really good.”
The closest I’ve ever gotten to such a brew is a gogol-mogol, and it made me feel really, really bad. This unpalatable Russian tonic was Mom’s super cure for sore throats, a disgusting blend of hot milk, eggs, butter, and honey we kids were forced to guzzle. This is why none of us can barely ingest a single thing.
Maybe it was time to grow up.
I decided to give the toddy the old hot pink try. I searched for the perfect recipe. I wanted the full ancient treatment in honor of the Scots who perhaps invented the concoction hundreds of years ago. Maybe in the middle of some fiery war with nothing but charred toads to snack on. The name must have changed in translation.
But first I asked a nurse.
Me: Does a hot toddy work?
Nurse: Well, I don’t know if it will heal you, but it won’t do you any harm.
She didn’t know my family.
I went with this recipe:
1 wimpy shot of whiskey
2 lemon slices
5 whole cloves
Hot tea (decaf for me)
Cinnamon stick
I put the tea bag in a cup with the lemon slices skewered with cloves, added the other ingredients, and topped it all with boiling water. Then I added a warm blanket, a good book, and a cozy couch. I thought about taking a few days off from work, but decided I wasn’t feeling so bad. The hot toddy was working already.
I lay there for a very long time. I did not wear pink. But suddenly I noticed an earring was missing.