Tea Caudle: A Recipe

When I stumbled upon the recipe for Tea Caudle at Vintage Cookbook Trials, it seemed like a perfect melding of my love for historical cookery and tea. I had made Medieval Style Caudle before, and this seemed like it could be an improvement thereupon. Still, I thought it funny to see how little this drink had changed in three centuries; the addition of tea is the main difference; other than that, nutmeg just replaces the older saffron.

I made a half recipe, consisting of:

8 ounces Pinot Grigio

2 cups strongly brewed Pu Erh Tuo tea

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons of sugar

nutmeg

Into the pot went the yolks, tea, sugar and wine. I beat them up together with a whisk, then kept stirring it over medium heat. The color immediately turned to something like tea with cream.

I expected the mixture to thicken, but even after it began boiling it never did any such thing. I figure it just has too much liquid compared to the egg yolks to get that kind of effect.

I poured a cup of the finished product and sprinkled it with nutmeg. The flavor? Not quite what I expected -- oddly it tastes pretty much like sweet tea with lemon! It's a good way to make a more astringent tea with some extra calories, it seems. (The part of me that dabbles in historical beauty recipes actually wonders if it might make a good face wash...) The nutmeg is not really noticeable -- I made the second cup without it and couldn't taste a difference.

I think if I were to make this again, I would go off-recipe a bit. A nice cream sherry seems like it would better compliment the taste of the tea, than a white wine. I might also consider adding a whole nutmeg to the pot and letting it boil with the rest, to better infuse its taste into the mixture.

If tea caudle is your cup of tea, another drink in the vein in Bailey's Irish Cream with tea.

Bailey's and coffee is a famous combo, but I'd never given real contemplation to Bailey's and tea till I saw this recipe from the official Bailey's Facebook Page.

Is there a better fall drink? We didn’t think so, either. Ingredients: 1.5 ounces Baileys® Original Irish Cream 3 ounces brewed chai tea Raw brown sugar Cinnamon stick Directions: Brew a pot of chai tea. Add 2 teaspoons of raw brown sugar for every cup. Stir until dissolved. Fill a coffee mug with chai tea and Baileys Original Irish Cream. Stir with cinnamon stick. This drink can also be served cold. Simply chill tea and serve drink in a tall glass over ice. This recipe contains no more than 0.6 fl. oz. of alcohol per serving.

Paper-in-Shoe Spells

A popular and very traditional hoodoo spell, often used for any situation where you need to control someone with magic , is the namepaper-in-shoe spell. It's very easy: you write the target's name 3, 7, or 9 times on a paper (depending on intent and who's giving instruction) then fold it up, sometimes after dressing it with oils or powders, then put it in your shoe. This "keeps the person underfoot" or "stomps out the trouble" or any other number of metaphors. I had this work several times over the years. In one instance, I was working for a very unpleasant boss, on a short-term job. It was the last day, and I only had about 3 hours of work left on the project; and I wanted him to up my pay for the day since it almost wasn't worth the trip across town for the amount he was paying me, for only 3 hours. He was very reluctant. So I wrote his name 3 times on a 5-dollar bill he'd given me, and dusted it with Bend Over powder. He paid me what I ...

Ammonia - A Spiritual Cleansing Agent for Magick

Ammonia is a strong cleansing agent in hoodoo magick, both physically and spiritually. In Edwardian times it was advised as an old home remedy for a nerve tonic (see recipe below.) "Household ammonia" or "ammonium hydroxide" is a solution of NH3 in water. Household ammonia ranges in concentration from 5 to 10 weight percent ammonia. The Romans called the ammonium chloride deposits they collected from near the Temple of Amun (Greek Ἄμμων Ammon) in ancient Libya 'sal ammoniacus' (salt of Amun) because of proximity to the nearby temple of Amun, the chief god of ancient Thebes. Salts of ammonia have been known from very early times; thus the term Hammoniacus sal appears in the writings of Pliny, although it is not known whether the term is identical with the more modern sal-ammoniac (ammonium chloride). In the form of sal-ammoniac (nushadir) ammonia was important to the Muslim alchemists as early as the 8th century, first mentioned by the arab chemist...

Spiritual Use of Turpentine in Hoodoo and Witchcraft

I have posted in the past about the use of giving one's bedding a spiritual cleansing from time to time. I recently was laundering my pillows in the same load of laundry as some turpentine-soaked rags, with the result that the pillows emerged from the wash reeking of turpentine. From a magical perspective, this may not be a bad thing. Turpentine is used in old-time hoodoo rituals for purposes such as uncrossing, protection and sometimes as a feed for mojo bags. Its solvent powers and strong odor do indeed suggest a powerful spiritual cleansing agent, and it is still used in some modern day cleaning products on a purely practical level for these same reasons. Old time medicines sometimes included turpentine as a thing to drink, in small doses. A book from the 1850s, The Domestic Medicine Chest , recommends giving it to children in a dose of one teaspoon for killing tapeworm. Relatedly, in old time hoodoo cures for "live things" turpentine might be made into a tea...

The Spellcaster's Source Hoodoo and Voodoo Witchcraft Blog of Talia Felix

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