Hot Winter Drinks with a Twist

Here Dominique provides us with some sinfully luxurious winter drinks to take us through different times of the day!

Bacardi Hot Chocolate
“I suggest you drink this chocolate at about 10.30 in the morning (note from the editor: this wouldn’t be during the working week, now would it?!) and if you feel a little bit hungry eat one of the cookies you have made from the recipes on the previous page. For 1 cup you will need: 20-40ml Bacardi Black, 1 cup of home made hot chocolate (melt the chocolate in a Bain Marie, take the casserole out of the Bain Marie and place it on the fire, pour in the milk and – if you feel like it – add some sugar and bring to the boil). You will also need some whipped cream. Put the Bacardi and hot chocolate in a cup and serve with whipped cream on top.”

Jamaican Coffee
“You can drink this coffee after lunch, the caffeine makes you go on for the rest of the afternoon while the alcohol makes you sleepy, so it’s up to you to which way you want to play it! For 1 cup you will need: 20ml Tia Maria, 20ml Bacardi Black – you should have some of this left over from the Bacardi hot chocolate! - some strong hot coffee and some whipped cream. Heat the Tia Maria and the Bacardi and pour into a cup, add the hot coffee and serve with the cream on top. And as with the previous recipe, you can add sugar if you feel like it.”

Burning Tea Punch
“The quantity of the ingredients seems a little bit over the top – even to me – but that’s the way the recipe is described. But nevertheless this gives you the basic idea for making this tea punch which is perfect for….afternoon tea!
For 6 persons: ½ kilo of sugar, 1 bottle of rum – you’d better buy 2 bottles of Bacardi black rum if you want to make all the recipes! - the juice from 4 oranges, juice from 4 lemons, ½ litre of strong, black tea.
Put the sugar in a casserole, pour over the rum – call the fire brigade – and then set the rum and sugar on fire. I suggest you do this outside and never, never try to do this under the extractor fan of the cooker hood. Leave it to burn until the sugar has caramelised. Heat the tea and the juices in another casserole. Mix everything together in a punch bowl and serve immediately.”

Baileys Hot Milk Punch
“If you find that even after a day filled with drinks and cookies that you still can’t sleep at night than you had better prepare a cup of hot milk, according to the following recipe of course! For 1 cup you will need: 2 parts Baileys, ½ part Metaxa, 3 parts of hot milk, ½ teaspoon of sugar. Heat the Baileys and the Metaxa together, stir and mix with the sugar. Add the hot milk. Sweet dreams!”

Where Can I Recycle Waste Items?

Apart from using the blue and yellow recycling bins for household waste other items can be recycled as follows:
Disposal of broken electrical goods. There is a depot just outside town which will take anything ‘that had a plug on it’ (including washing machines and fridges). Drivers, take the National Road towards Heraklion in Misiria. Turn off the highway after about 100—150 metres, hang a right and you should soon see recycling bins etc. The depot is open from 6am to 3pm on weekdays, and from 6am to 12 noon at weekends. For further information call 28310 57940. For large objects that need collection call 195 from any phone.
Old telephones and small telecoms items. There is a green bin in the entrance of the main OTE office..
Batteries. various places in town including OTE, DEI, Germanos, Marinopoulos and Champion.
Old cars. DRAKOS on the left hand side of the National Road a short way out of Rethymnon (going towards Hania). They even pay you as they recycle the spares and give you a paper for tax purposes!