Even when you don't feel like writing, write anyway...Design a cocktail or drink after yourself.

 From "500 Writing Prompts" :

You have to design a cocktail or drink after yourself (alcoholic or non-alcoholic). What ingredients are in it and what will you name it?

Honestly, some of these prompts...Design and name a drink after myself? This sounds more like a ridiculous party game, not a writing prompt. Okay, my goal is to do the prompt no matter how terrible or inane, to teach  to write even when we don't feel like writing.

Not sure how I want to approach this. Do I mess about with things I actually really enjoy drinking, like tea and coconut and vodka (not all together...I don't drink those all together) or do I attempt to choose things that represent me, or my perspective of myself, that I may not like but I feel represent me?

My first thought is coconut and ginger. I really like coconut and ginger right now, but really is that something that represents me? How about coconut ginger chai. Well, do you need to put ginger on there if it's chai? Chai has ginger in it already, doesn't it? And I don't mean the super sweet chai you get at coffee shops and such, I don't like that. I like chai tea bags and milk. Chai doesn't come with coconut flavoring but I could add coconut milk. And...what's the yellow stuff, not saffron...turmeric.

Tumeric-it's related to ginger!

I'm not a yellow kind of person, though, except as an accent color. Yellow is an excellent accent to purple, which is my favorite color. But I don't want to make a purple drink.

PURPLE!!!
Photo by Jonny Lew from Pexels

Okay, enough fooling around with photos. I really like adding photos to my posts. I don't a wall of text, it's boring. But sometimes I go a bit overboard with the photos.

Back to the drink. I choose lime juice, raw honey, and cayenne pepper. This past April (of 2020) I was at my sister's house (well, her apartment) in San Antonio, Texas. I was staying for a month because she was out of the country. I couldn't leave, I was taking care of her cats, but I had a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE allergy attack. It was a combination of my seasonal allergies being in overdrive because of the Texas yellow pines which, because I've never had exposure to them, hit me extra hard, and my sister's cats. I have my own cats but I've developed immunity to them. But sister's cats, not so much. The two combined really hit me hard, I was wheezing and sneezing and coughing and spent many days in bed doped up on several kinds of antihistamines. One thing that helped calm things down a bit was a combination of fresh squeezed lime juice which I heated in the microwave, raw honey, and cayenne pepper.

Even native Texans fall to Cedar Fever,
 so me being from Illinois...

Not a miracle cure, but it sure helped for a few days. That and sleeping in the bathtub. Because it was the easiest place to wipe down completely and the shower curtain kept out a lot of the animal dander and pollen and it was the furthest place in the apartment away from the doors. You know, furthest from where pollen could get in.

Eventually I went to the ER, but that's a long(er) story, this ain't supposed to be about that. I felt like I needed to explain the backstory. I don't know why, I only really need to explain the ingredients.

Honestly, I don't know why I put those three things together. Lime has vitamin C and my sister happened to have some limes on the counter. I really like limes, so I squeezed those into a little bowl and heated it in the microwave, because the heat would feel really good for my raw throat. I think I add the limes because they juice helps thicken the mucus so I could cough it up. Then I stirred in a spoonful of crystallized raw honey. I love crystallized honey, I like feeling the crystals on my tongue. Yeah, that's weird. And I also don't know why I chose to add cayenne pepper. I was going to put in regular pepper, but I saw some cayenne pepper in the cabinet so I grabbed that, works better. I put a lot in, but I didn't measure it. Just...a lot. Maybe a teaspoon? I think I add it because it can help clear your sinuses and open up your breathing passages. My throat felt like it was closing up.

It really helped for a while, enough to allow me to breath for a couple of hours. At that point my entire world had shrunk to just trying to breathe freely, so finally being able to for a couple of hours was such a relief. I had to sip it of course, can't knock back that amount of cayenne pepper without choking.

So, that's my drink. Fresh squeezed lime juice heated, crystallized raw honey, and cayenne pepper. Heat the lime juice first, by itself, before you add the honey and cayenne pepper.

Why would I choose this drink? Because it made me feel smart, figuring out this combination. And because I am acidic but interesting, like lime. I'm hot-tempered and spicy, like cayenne pepper, and....crystalline? Like raw honey? Three slightly unusual things combined for an unusual taste and also it helps you breathe.

What would I name it? Just Breathe. That's what I'll name it. Just Breathe.

And....add vodka sometimes. Sometimes.