12/5: a bit of rum

Sometimes when I was growing up there would be a day in December when after dinner we all had tea--this on its own was rare, because my parents were (and are) dedicated coffee drinkers. But this tea was special for another reason: after pouring our cups we would each put a sugar cube and some rum in a teaspoon. Before plopping the sugar and rum into our cups, we would light the rum and watch the little blue flames burning over the sizzling sugar. Then, on the count of three, we would all dunk our spoons into our tea.

I didn't do anything as elaborate as that this evening, but I was hankering after the special taste of that tea, so I made some chai and added a dose of rum. It did the trick!