Here in Portland Oregon we have been experiencing a week of winter the likes of which I’m told have not been seen since 1969. It is not the weather that one is accustomed to, having grown-up on the West Coast. It is finally beginning to melt this afternoon. I’ve had an enjoyable time close to the hearth, cooking and drinking, and making expeditions to grocery stores for additional food and beer.
On Monday evening we greeted our dinner guests with a warm-me-up, this milk toddy. It is a creamy, spicy drink, and warming of the inner man.
Milk Toddy
in a mug, pour the following:
1oz Meyer’s Dark rum,
½oz Averna, and
½oz simple syrup.
Squeeze the juice from an eighth-part wedge of a lemon, and drop it in.
Pour over about 3-4oz boiling water.
Add 1oz heavy whipping cream, and stir
Finish with a grate of nutmeg.
Searching Google for references to the milk toddy, I came across this passage, from a 19th Century local history.
Another mixture was toddy. The rum was put into a glass tumbler ..and a quantity of loaf sugar added. They had an instrument called a toddy-stick. It was seven or eight inches long and about an inch in diameter at the lower end, with which they crushed the sugar and stirred it up, and water was added and a little nutmeg grated in. The ringing noise of the toddy stick against the sides of the tumbler was very musical in the ears of the drinker. It was sometimes poured into a bowl and the bowl filled with milk, which was milk-toddy.
from A History of Old Chester, from 1719 to 1869 (New Hampshire) by Benjamin Chase, available at GoogleBooks
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