"Icy winter," Apple Sunrise

"Let no one, however canny, induce you to work your land
When it's bone hard under a north wind.
Then icy winter closes down the countryside ...."

Virgil, the Georgics, Book 2; tr. C. Day Lewis (Anchor Books, 1964)

We daresay no one is going to induce Sir Nicholas Broadbottom (above) to work his land. He might, however, be persuaded to have a cocktail. Here, in keeping with the picture-theme of a breaking dawn, is Charles Schumann's recipe for an Apple Sunrise, from American Bar.

Pour each ingredient one after the other into a collins glass (a tall glass), and stir gently:

• a few dashes fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 ounce (1 and 1/2 teaspoon) creme de cassis -- this gives our drink the flavor of black currant, a taste wine writers are forever recognizing and relishing in glasses of red wine. One would think they had all grown up playing in the shade of their mothers' black currant bushes. Remember how we studied this when we thought about received wisdom in wine?   
• 1 and 1/4 ounces (a little less than a jigger) Calvados -- (apple brandy)
• 2 and 3/4 ounces (about two jiggers) fresh orange juice 

Drink. Don't get hung up on received wisdom. Stay warm.