Everybody knows that hot rum and water is sovereign for a cold, but perhaps everybody does not know exactly how the remedy should be applied. This is the probatum. You must take it in bed; premature consumption merely wastes the good creature. It should be made, in a large rummer-glass, as hot as you can drink it (hence the advice of the rummer—for a mere tumbler may burn your hands), not too sweet, but so strong that you sink back at once on the pillow, resigning the glass to the ready hands of a sympathising bedside attendant, preferably feminine.
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Monday, November 18, 2019
Remedy for a Cold
George Saintsbury (1845-1933), Notes on a Cellar-Book (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1920), pp. 122-123: