Fireside? Fire Cider!

A winter concoction for what ails ye

I love being healthy. It sounds like something that someone would put on their dating profile to check a box, something that goes without saying, like “I love to laugh.”

So please allow me to explain.

In my family of origin, “health” was not necessarily a concern when it came to what we ate and drank. I was fed Coca-Cola in a bottle. As a child, I’d often eat 3 candy bars a day with my mother’s blessing. I don’t think that I ate fresh fruit (save for the occasional Red Delicious apple or banana — dipped in chocolate, preferably) until I was a teenager.

At around 15, I became a vegetarian. In the 80s in Texas, that was akin to becoming a Hare Krishna (which I also did, a few years later).

Veggie Does Not = Healthy

Being a vegetarian, of course, doesn’t equate to being healthy, as decades of my life can attest. For years I consumed primarily coffee, champagne, cheese, and bread. Those were the years that I considered myself “decadent and hedonistic.” In retrospect, I was really just self-destructive and armored against life. I had dialed into an agony that was just what I could endure (not a drop more or less) and locked down there.

Dear Reader, please don’t do that.

In the last few years since my personal renaissance, I’ve cleaned up my consumption habits. Whereas I used to snark at people who endeavored to eat clean, now I think I understand. Eating this way really does make me feel better. It’s not about being “holier than thou” or even trying to live longer. It’s about living better. Once I started discovering the direct correlation between what I ate and how I felt (imagine that!), it was, as they say, on.

So yeah, I love being healthy.

Know Thyself, Baby

I’m not a scientist or a dietitian.

I don’t eat meat for spiritual reasons. Other than that, I go by my intuition — at 51, I’ve at last developed a good feel for the result that different patterns of consumption will have on me.

For instance, I discovered, after decades, that my body simply rebels when confronted with coffee. My stomach feels sick and my nervous system ramps up to a point where I’m shaking and dysregulated. I used to consider that simply the cost of living as an adult. I’d use wine to bring myself down at night and wake up nauseous, needing coffee to function. It was a trap I’d willingly walked into, but I sprang myself with good habits.

Habits are Fire

One of my most recently adopted habits is drinking a tablespoon of fire cider each day.

What, you may ask, is fire cider? It’s a fermented, apple cider vinegar (ACV) based tonic that is said to boost the immune system, especially during winter.

These articles do an excellent job of delving into the science behind ACV generally and fire cider specifically:

One thing I love about making and taking fire cider is the ritual of it all. There’s something about assembling the ingredients in the bottle & knowing that I’m doing it for future-me that I simply can’t get from a store-bought remedy.

Generally speaking, fire cider is best when it’s allowed to do its thing undisturbed for a couple of months before use. For me and my grabby hands, this is nearly impossible. So to keep my hands off it and to add extra ritual, I buried my fire cider in the ground and dug it up on the Solstice.

That brings me to another point — I wanted my Fire Cider for the first day of winter, dammit!

My impatience led me to search for a “speedy” alternative to the normal long fermentation period. I found this recipe with dry ingredients that only needed three weeks of fermentation.

I wasn’t able to quickly locate horseradish root powder, so I got a big chunk of horseradish root, sliced it, and used that instead.

Simply put all of that in a big jar and bury it (or if you can restrain yourself, put it in your cabinet). When the allotted time is up, dig it up (or just take it out) and strain it into another jar/bottle.

That’s it! I like to take a tablespoon in orange juice in the morning, as taking it straight is a bit much for me (it’s powerful…imagine wasabi pickle juice with a cinnamon ginger twist).

Soon I’ll start amassing ingredients for my spring Fire Cider, to be opened on the Vernal Equinox.

If you make Fire Cider, please share your recipe and experiences in the comments!