Happy Birthday, Ethan Allen

Today is Ethan Allen's two hundred and seventy-first birthday. We celebrated here at Chez Gauthier with a cake and a stonewall, a vile drink Ethan is supposed to have been fond of tossing back.

Stonewalls are made with warm cider and rum. I'm not fond of rum, myself, so I mulled the cider first, thinking that might mask the flavor. Not a particularly good idea. On top of that, I believe Ethan's stonewalls were made with hard cider, which isn't particularly easy to find around here these days.

In addition, we picked the winner of the copy of The Hero of Ticonderoga. So someone will actually be receiving a gift to celebrate Ethan's birthday.

I didn't make that cake, by the way. Not that I couldn't have. I am perfectly capable of making a cake, just so you know. I could have decorated it, too, if I had been feeling ambitious. However, this is a work day, and what with the holidays, vacation, snowstorms to deal with, and what have you, I haven't done much work this past month. I couldn't justify taking more time off to bake a cake for someone who would never see it because...he's been dead for over two hundred years.

I'm not actually crazy.