1 ounce bourbon

1/2 ounce Aperol

1/2 ounce Amaro

1/2 ounce lemon juice

3/4 ounce simple syrup

3 ounces hot tea

Combine in a heat-proof glass. Careful, don’t boil the alcohol content out of the drink! Garnish with a cinnamon stick or a twist of lemon.

It’s cold, and getting colder here in central Virginia–and the winds are howling outside. I am thankful that Youngest Son is now safely home with us, and thankful that we still have power and a well-stocked refrigerator. But I am hugely disappointed: I had planned activities for us to do as an alternative to our traditional family Christmas activities, since it will be only the three of us this year. We were going to leave this afternoon to spend 24 hours in Staunton, Virginia: a candlelight tour of the farms at the Museum of Frontier Culture, an overnight at the iconic downtown hotel, brunch at a classy restaurant, and a matinee performance of A Christmas Carol at the American Shakespeare Center. But bah humbug–the tour is cancelled due to super-cold temperatures in the mountains, and the play is cancelled because the cast has Covid. This is now a two-cocktail kind of evening.