Spirited Spirits: Personal Bubble
Welcome everyone to cold and flu season!
Cold and wet weather always has a tendency to bring with it numerous ailments that spread through offices, restaurants, and homes like wildfire. There are many mundane things that can help prevent the spread of these, ranging from hand washing and hand sanitizer all the way to gloves and masks depending on your personal situation and what it is you are trying to avoid. However, with the spread of illnesses, sometimes things just break your way or they don’t: you can do all the right things, avoid people you know are sick, and still wind up feeling like junk. That’s where magical intentions and our rituals can really come into play; helping things break our way more often. Today, we’re going to be talking about one of the most powerful healing and preventative herbs I know of, and exploring a way to further tailor that to aid us in repelling disease from ever reaching us in the first place.
Cinchona Bark!
Cinchona bark, and more directly the chemical quinine, has a long history of medicinal use. It was an effective treatment for malaria originally, and is still used occasionally for that purpose today when more modern medications are unavailable. Tonic water became the go to way of taking quinine, and leave it to the British to make their medicine easier to take by adding gin to it. This was the birth of the original gin and tonics, a staple in nearly every bar across the world today. Although we will not be using anywhere close to medicinal amounts of quinine or cinchona bark, the intentions for healing are soaked into everything associated with it. This allows us to draw from that history to help manifest our own needs. What a better way to do this than to follow in their footsteps, and partake in the delightfully bitter sweet gin and tonic?
Gin and Juniper
Although every gin on the market has its own proprietary blend of herbs and aromatics that go into it, juniper berries are the heart and soul of gin. Every gin on the market will have some amount of juniper in there, and is often the single most prominent flavor when you taste it. Among junipers numerous properties, protection is something that comes up time and time again. The pairing of protection and health intentions seems to be a perfect base for our manifestations of not getting sick. Carrying this idea further, there are a handful of other ingredients that can further aid us here.
The Helpers
Lime: Generally just thrown on the side of the glass, lime adds acidity and brightness to the drink and makes it taste far better. In addition, it adds wonderful intentions of purification. Think of it as purifying the air around you, or purifying your body from the things that are seeking to harm it.
Black Peppercorn: A common addition to many gins, the sharpness from peppercorns adds a nice balance to the very floral or resiny flavors already established. Black peppercorn is also used heavily in banishing rituals. It adds an element of evicting anything that does attempt to make your body its new home.
Rosemary: Paired with juniper, these create a wonderfully herbaceous and pine forward flavor pairing. Also akin to juniper, rosemary is very commonly used for protection rituals and magicks, and protection is something that I’m never afraid to double down on.
Thyme: This is one of the quintessential herbaceous flavors in the culinary world, and is present in blends for almost every single culinary purpose. Also, it is a well established purifying agent, and paired with the lime can create a filter around you that can catch nasty things before it reaches you.
One final note on healing and preventative magicks like this: no matter how strong your intentions in this ritual are, your actions can very quickly undo the work. Rituals like this will not make up for poor hygiene, carelessness, or intentionally putting yourself in dangerous situations.
Stay safe everyone, and if intentionally charged gin and tonics are your thing, we’ve got a few more ideas coming out later. Stay tuned for those, and we’d love to hear your favorite health tonics!
Personal Bubble
Ingredients
- 2 oz Gin
- 0.75 oz Lime Juice
- 0.50 oz Rosemary Thyme Cordial
- 4 oz Tonic Water
- 1.5 cups Water
- 1 cup Sugar
- 2 sprigs Rosemary
- 2 sprigs Thyme
- 1.5 tsp Ground Black Pepper
Instructions
- Add the gin, cordial, and lime juice to your glass.
- Top off with the tonic water, and stir.
- Add ice, garnish with lime wheels and rosemary.
- Get your pan hot, and add the black pepper. Toast until aromatic.
- Add your sugar and water. Stir until dissolved, and bring to a boil.
- Add the rosemary and thyme, and reduce to a simmer.
- Reduce the liquid by 1/3, then remove from the heat.
- Allow to cool to room temperature, then strain and bottle.
- Will last 2-4 weeks in the fridge.