Just as we are about to begin the new year in a Gregorian sense, the Jacobins are beginning the month of Nivôse – Snowy. Back when I began this recipe blog, I gave future months a quick glance to see if creating recipes for most days in a month was a possibility. Turns out, I definitely skipped over Nivôse in that preparatory stage. Every other month of the 10-month year celebrates an array of animals, agricultural tools, fruits and vegetables. Nivôse is dedicated nearly solely to minerals. Fabre d’Egalitine (via Wikipedia) puts it this way:

As the calendar is something that we use so often, we must take advantage of this frequency of use to put elementary notions of agriculture before the people — to show the richness of nature, to make them love the fields, and to methodically show them the order of the influences of the heavens and of the products of the earth.

[…]

So we have arranged in the column of each month, the names of the real treasures of the rural economy. The grains, the pastures, the trees, the roots, the flowers, the fruits, the plants are arranged in the calendar, in such a way that the place and the day of the month that each product occupies is precisely the season and the day that Nature presents it to us.

So, it certainly makes a great deal of sense that late December/ most of January could not be filled with flora and fauna. Even the animals of this month are the least edible (in my opinion): dog, rabbit and cat. As such, I’ve decided to take much more creative license than previous months in coming up with recipes to honor and celebrate the items of the month of Nivôse. Today, 1 Nivôse, is Peat Day. I’m choosing to focus on peaty Scotch and have used a little bit of it in a hot Scotch cocktail. I did not know until preparing this very post that the peat flavor in Scotch comes from drying the barley over peat fires. Please note: I know nothing about Scotch that doesn’t come from Outlander or this Nick Offerman music video (bonus: several scenes with peat!)

So, stay tuned to see how tangentially I can link recipes to various minerals this month!

Hot Toddy 

1/2 ounce of a peaty Scotch (I used Laphroaig 10 year)

2 ounces of a not peaty Scotch (I used Glenlivet)

1 tsp honey

2 cloves

1 cinnamon stick

1 lemon slice

as much hot water as you would like

First, set some water to boil. Then, put the honey in your glass and pour the hot water over it, mixing to dissolve. Then, add the Scotches, cloves, cinnamon stick and lemon slice. Enjoy!