Recently I wrote about Johnny Jump Ups, the heretical but delicious combination of hard cider and whiskey. This week I had the opportunity to try a winter variation on this seductive concept, which is whiskey mixed with “soft cider” and warmed up into a tasty and soothing combination.

It's kind of like an adult version of hot cocoa- something to warm you up, relax you, and put your body and spirit into that mellow place we all want to be in when we decide to have a drink.

Holding my steaming mug of whiskey and cider, I had a conversation with someone I had met at the party who was about my age. I was saying that no one after a certain stage in life ever sets out to get drunk. That's for those crazy early years when you're tearing things up.

The goal, for a “mature” drinker is the golden glow- that expansive, all-is-well-with-the-world feeling you get after a couple of drinks. Once you start drinking for the golden glow, you're only likely to get drunk by mistake- for instance, by deciding that your glow is starting to fade and having one whiskey-and-cider too many. As for me, I had a total of five, spaced out over about six hours. Since I'm six-foot-three and about two hundred and ten pounds, this was just enough to create and maintain the golden glow, but if I had had one more, it would have been too much.

And no, I didn't drive after that! The golden glow isn't drunk, but it's not exactly sober either. It's important to understand that.