Good middle-of-the-week morning. It’s Wednesday, and this week is just flying by.
It’s darn cold out – not Iowa cold, mind you, but cold enough to merit staying inside with a good book and a warm fire and a lapful of cuddly doggies to keep you company.
And it’s the perfect time to wrap your hands around a mugful of something hot and comforting. These days, that’s likely to be coffee, tea, or hot chocolate for me. Maybe even some hot cider, spiced with cinnamon, or even some hot lemon water if I’m feeling like there’s a cold or flu coming on.
Probably many of you Dry January folks are in the same boat.
But maybe you’re more of a Damp January sort of person, or perhaps didn’t see the need to give up alcohol at all. It’s gray, it’s chilly, winter can be tough enough as it is. Why make it harder still by depriving oneself of something that helps take the edge off?
If that’s the case, well, this post is for you. Today is National Hot Buttered Rum Day, for no particular historical reason that I can locate anywhere on the interwebs. Still, it gives us an excuse to delve deeply into the history of hot toddies.
The practice of imbibing warm alcoholic beverages called “toddies” or “taddies” dates back centuries, reportedly to a time when the British controlled India. Of course, in Japan, they were drinking hot sake many years before that, even.
Another origin story is that an Irish doctor named Robert Bentley Todd prescribed a drink made of hot brandy, cinnamon, and sugar water to his patients, believing that it would have warming, medicinal properties. The drink eventually made its way across the pond to the Americas, where it was made from rum and molasses imported from the Caribbean or local brandy.
Hot buttered rum apparently was created at this time. And yes, the recipe does in fact include butter, along with hot water or cider, sweetener and spices (typically cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves), and, of course, rum – often spiced or barrel aged dark rum, which is said to add additional caramel notes to the concoction.
Another version is called the Tom & Jerry, which strikes me as a combination of hot buttered rum and a hot version of eggnog, which is traditionally served cold.
FWIW, modern-day experts say the benefits of a hot toddy actually derive from the honey and lemon in the recipe, while warm beverages of any sort – alcoholic or not – soothe irritated throats and chests and thin mucous secretions).
Alcohol can, in small doses, help you sleep. (It’s in some over-the-counter cough remedies for a reason. But it can also dehydrate you and depress the immune system, which are counterproductive when you’re trying to recover from an illness.
It’s going to be a good day for warm drinks or any sort – with or without alcohol – since there’s some digging out to do yet from yesterday’s snowfall, and it’s going to be cold. Today’s forecast is calling for partly cloudy skies with high temperatures only reaching the mid-20s.
Winds will be between 10 and 15 mph, which means it’s going to feel a heck of a lot colder out there. Bundle up!
In the headlines…
The U.S carried out a new military strike against Houthi ballistic missiles in Yemen, but the latest salvo against the Iran-backed group left the White House grappling with how to stop a battle-hardened foe from disrupting shipping lanes critical for global trade.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a missile attack on a Malta-flagged cargo ship in the Red Sea as the United States says it has launched a new strike on Houthi targets amid soaring tensions around the key waterway.
The Biden administration plans to designate Yemen’s Houthi militia as a terrorist organization, partly reimposing penalties it lifted nearly three years ago on an Iran-backed group whose attacks on Red Sea shipping traffic have drawn a U.S. military response.
President Joe Biden invited congressional leaders to the White House for a meeting yesterday to discuss ongoing negotiations over a national security spending bill to aid Ukraine and other priorities.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all received invitations to attend.
Biden will campaign in North Caroline this week. He will travel to the Raleigh-Durham area to discuss “Bidenomics” and his “Investing in America agenda.”
The Senate took the first step in advancing a stopgap spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, buying time to enact a broader bipartisan funding agreement for the remainder of the year.
By a 68-to-13 vote, senators voted to take up the legislation, which would temporarily extend funding for some federal agencies until March 1 and for others through March 8.
With federal cash expiring in a matter of days for the departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Energy and more, much will hinge on whether the Senate can pass the stopgap quickly, which requires consent from all 100 senators.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley was hospitalized for treatment for an unspecified infection, his office said. The 90-year-old Republican went to get “antibiotic infusions at an area hospital to treat an infection,” the office stated.
Hours after Donald Trump cemented his political standing with a romp through the caucus rooms of Iowa, he arrived yesterday morning in his other world: a courtroom.
Trump attended the first day of his civil defamation trial, watching as a jury was selected to determine how much, if any, damages the former president must pay to E. Jean Carroll for his 2019 defamatory statements about Carroll’s sexual assault allegations.
Trump attorney Alina Habba said in her opening statement that Carroll’s career has prospered since she went forward with her sexual assault allegations, arguing that Carroll was trying to seek “a windfall” over “mean tweets.”
Trump’s legal counsel Boris Epshteyn briefly spoke to reporters outside court at the conclusion of the proceedings, calling the trial “straight out of [a] banana republic.”
Some Democrats consider the former president the Republican they would have the best chance against this fall, but also the one they most fear the consequences of losing to.
ABC News and WMUR are canceling their planned Republican primary debate in New Hampshire tomorrow, citing a lack of candidate participation. Nikki Haley said she wouldn’t show up unless Trump, who has declined to do so to this point, does.
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign,” Haley said in a statement, released as she campaigned in New Hampshire. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. “
A federal appeals court said it won’t re-hear a case concerning executive privilege and Twitter after special counsel investigators in the 2020 election interference case were allowed to access data from Trump’s account without telling him.
Even as the court declined to revisit the issue, the court’s conservative judges united to scold their liberal colleagues and the lower-court judge who initially decided the case.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is seeking to balance the state’s highest-ever spending plan with a need to rein in New York’s spending on education and Medicaid while also dealing with the state’s nation-leading population loss.
Hochul unveiled a $233 billion budget for New York State that includes $2.4 billion to help New York City manage its migrant crisis — a $500 million increase reflecting the mounting costs as immigrants continue to arrive.
The governor continued her calls for more federal support to assist with the asylum seeker surge — saying that she would visit Washington, D.C., on Friday — but said she expected the city would continue to be “swimming against the tide” for the time being.
As part of her budget plan, the governor said she would make a one-time dip into the state’s financial reserves to support the city with what she called a “humanitarian crisis.”
Hochul said while she plans to increase school aid by around 2.4% and spend more on the state-funded Medicaid health care program, the spending rate increase will be far lower than the record increases seen over the past two years.
“We can’t spend like there’s no tomorrow,” Hochul said. “Because tomorrow always comes.”
“The way we solve for the budget gap is use of a little bit upside…on our revenue forecast,” state Budget Director Blake Washington said. “We took some reductions in Medicaid, but the state’s Medicaid program is still growing by $3 billion, or 11 percent.”
Hochul’s executive budget proposes repealing a state “potency tax” on marijuana products that industry stakeholders said has deterred legal retail sales and driven more consumers to buy cannabis from unlicensed vendors.
Hochul’s spending plan allocates $7.9 billion in state operating aid to the MTA. Upstate transit systems would receive $323 million and downstate non-MTA transit systems would get $551 million — both a 5.4% increase from last year.
Hochul proposed a four-year extension of mayoral control over New York City public schools, again backing Mayor Eric Adams on the hot-button issue.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will host a public open house this evening to discuss New York’s efforts to advance the offshore wind industry.
Days after a state comptroller’s audit found “little assurance” that DFS is adequately overseeing BitLicenses, the regulatory agency reached a settlement with Genesis Global Trading, requiring it to surrender its license, pay an $8 million fine and stop operating.
New York taxpayers cut disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo a check for over half a million dollars this week as reimbursement for his legal fees.
Mayor Eric Adams released a $109.4 billion budget that contains far less doom and gloom than he had originally warned of.
Proposing a $109 billion-dollar budget, Adams said that New York City’s financial outlook had improved, but he still called for more federal funding to help pay for the migrant crisis.
Adams’ administration has spared the police, fire and sanitation departments from the latest round of budget cuts aimed at covering the costs of New York City’s migrant crisis.
A video posted to social media by the NYPD is raising hackles about the accuracy of what it depicts and questions over whether the Department should be weighing in about pending legislation now awaiting Adams’ approval.
Adams has so far raised nearly $3 million for his next mayoral run, but his fundraising operation has flagged in recent months — a dip in political cashflow that coincides with several scandals.
Contributors to Adams’s defense fund include at least four billionaires: the former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Ukrainian-British oligarch Leonard Blavatnik, the real estate and fertilizer tycoon Alexander Rovt and the cryptocurrency investor Brock Pierce.
Rex Heuermann, the man who has been charged with the murders of three sex workers on Gilgo Beach, New York, was charged yesterday with a fourth killing after DNA from his daughter’s discarded energy drink can helped tie him to the slayings.
A slew of new evidence was released by prosecutors in Heuermann’s case, including travel records showing his family leaving town during the alleged murders, the suspect’s illicit online searches and investigators’ attempts to secure DNA evidence from his daughter.
Heuermann was charged in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, months after he was labeled the prime suspect in her death when he was arrested in July in the deaths of three others. He pleaded not guilty, as he had done in the other cases, and is due back in court Feb. 6.
Madison Square Garden boss and Knicks owner James Dolan has been linked to fallen movie maker Harvey Weinstein in a new federal lawsuit accusing the pair of sex trafficking and sexual assault.
According to a complaint, Dolan used his influence to take advantage of a 27-year-old massage therapist.
The woman says that she told Dolan — a former friend and business associate of Weinstein’s — about the alleged incident after it occurred in early 2014, years before Dolan made public statements that he had been unaware of Weinstein’s history of misconduct.
Two New York City police officers were shot in a Brooklyn apartment yesterday after a man grabbed a service weapon from one officer during a skirmish that unfolded as the officers responded to a call about a domestic dispute, officials said.
The City University of New York received a $75 million donation tied to a statewide artificial intelligence project — the largest gift in the public university system’s history.
In a surprise announcement, Charlotte St. Martin, who has served as president of the Broadway League since 2006, said she would be stepping down from her current role next month.
Several hundred seniors in the city of Albany might have seen a little sticker shock in their 2024 property tax bills.
A Washington County judge denied a defense request for a mistrial in the Kevin Monahan murder trial, rejecting the attorney’s argument that jurors saw prejudicial body camera footage in which he referenced a lawyer – thus making him appear guilty.
The owners of Mario’s Restaurant in Lake George, run by the same family for about 70 years, are selling the Italian-style restaurant and seeking new ownership to enhance it.
The Schenectady Ethics Board dismissed complaints lodged against a city councilman, finding he did not abuse his power in a flap over friend’s towed SUV.
Job seekers were welcomed yesterday to Hattie’s in Albany for the kickoff of a six-day job fair to staff the newest addition to the chicken shack’s family of restaurants.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
