Here's a great recipe for Christmas Eve. Or Christmas Day. Or anytime Jack Frost is nipping at your nose. Guaranteed to keep you warm and toasty. We'll be sweating it out drinking this here in Florida, but it's just so good!

What I call my New World Wassail:

1 gallon of Apple Cider

2 tsp. whole allspice

2 tsp. whole cloves

1/2 cup sugar (or a little less -- this is really sweet!)

2 cinnamon sticks

1 orange, sliced

Rum -- however much you like! (The rum is what makes this New World Wassail, as opposed to the more traditional kind which would have been made with wine or ale.)

Heat all the ingredients except the oranges, cover and simmer 20 minutes. Then float the oranges and serve. You're supposed to strain this into a punch bowl, but to keep it hot I leave it on the stove and ladle it through a strainer into the cups.  Recently I saw a great idea on AOL: serving wassail in hollowed out apples!

"Waes Hael!", in Saxon, meant "Good Health!"
In olden times, Christmas revellers walked from house to house carrying their bowl of Wassail to share with their neighbors at Twelfth Night or New Years Eve.

Wassail, wassail all round the town;
The zider-cup's white and the zider's brown;
Our zider is made vrom good apple trees,
And now my vine vellows we'll drink if you please.

Merry Christmas!

Yummy! One local tavern was actually selling "Smoking Bishop!" Gotta love Connecticut at Christmastime. I posted a picture on my blog of suicidal ice fishermen.