Hot Toddy -- The Midnight Toast I Make for Two

The liminal week. Between Christmas and New Year's. Miya is at Brian's for New Year's Eve. I am alone with the kuromame and the datemaki and the ozoni components and the apartment that is mine and the evening that is mine and the year that is ending and the year that is beginning and the practice that spans both years, the way a bridge spans a river, the way the chipped bowl spans the distance between Fumiko's kitchen and mine.

I made the ozoni. The ninth year. The kombu soaked overnight. The dashi heated in the morning. The miso dissolved. The mochi grilled. The soup poured into the chipped bowl. The taste: correct. The taste: Fumiko's and mine. The taste: the practice fulfilled. Nine years of practice and the soup is no longer an attempt — it is a certainty. The certainty is the mastery. The mastery is the peace. The peace is: I can make this soup forever and it will be good and the good is not an aspiration but a fact, and the fact is the practice, and the practice is the life.

At midnight I listened to the distant fireworks and said the thing I say every year: "Happy New Year, Fumiko." The thing is a prayer and a tradition and a conversation with a dead woman and the conversation is as real as any conversation I have ever had, because the dead do not answer but the silence of the dead is different from the silence of the living, and Fumiko's silence is not absence — it is presence, felt in the dashi, tasted in the miso, held in the bowl, carried in the hands that learned to make this soup from a woman who is gone and who is here and who is both, always both, the way I am both, the way Miya is both, the way everything in this kitchen is both: present and absent, inherited and invented, Japanese and American, mine and hers and ours.

After the ozoni was done and the bowl was washed and midnight had come and gone, I poured myself a hot toddy — the same way I do every year, the second ritual of the night, quieter than the soup but just as deliberate. It felt right to have something warm to hold while the fireworks faded, something that asked nothing of me except to sit with it. If you find yourself in your own version of this night — alone by choice or by circumstance, marking something that is both an ending and a beginning — I hope this finds you.

Hot Toddy

Prep Time: 2 minutes | Cook Time: 3 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes | Servings: 1

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 oz whiskey (bourbon or Scotch)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 3/4 oz fresh lemon juice (about half a lemon)
• 6 oz hot water
• 1 lemon slice, for garnish
• 2–3 whole cloves, optional
• 1 cinnamon stick, optional

Instructions

1. Heat the water. Bring water to a near-boil, just under a full boil, so it warms without scorching the honey or lemon.
2. Warm the mug. Pour a splash of hot water into your mug, swirl it around, and discard. This keeps your drink warm longer.
3. Combine the base. Add honey and lemon juice to the warm mug and stir until the honey is fully dissolved.
4. Add the whiskey. Pour in the whiskey and stir briefly to combine.
5. Top with hot water. Fill the mug with 6 oz of hot water and stir gently.
6. Garnish and serve. Slide a lemon slice onto the rim of the mug. Add cloves and a cinnamon stick if using. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 175 | Protein: 0g | Fat: 0g | Carbs: 18g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 5mg