Warm Drinks

[wayne aune]

I am trying to get away from caffeine a little. What is everyone drinking out there in the winter? Thanks

[Eric Noble]

I drink chai tea or hot chocolate year around.

[Richard Matthews]

Hot spiced cider, herb tea, hot cocoa.

Hey Eric, chai tea is redundant. Like ATM machine.

[Bill Fornshell]

Carnation Instant Breakfast Drink – Rich Milk Chocolate.

220 calories per cup and a nice mix of nutritional stuff.

[Rick Dreher]

Miso soup is a nice trailside warmup. I'm a coffee in the a.m. kinda guy, myself.

Hot chocolate and brandy at night!

[Eric Noble]

Richard, I've been told frequently, again and again, that I am often serially redundant. :) Thanks for reminding me of Carnation Instant Breakfast, Bill. I used to drink a lot of the stuff. I'm not sure why I stopped. I'll add it to my list. I assume you add powered milk to it or does the Ensure serve that purpose?

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

I drink herbal tea, a lot of it. Celestial Seasonings is my favorite brand.
Now, in town, I live on Tazo Passion herbal tea, mixed with steamed lemonade. Yum! Something I can get at almost any Starbucks.

[Anonymous]

Miso soup in the PM, Japanese green tea or "Hoji cha" in the AM. Hoji cha is green tea that has been roasted. It produces a rich nutty flavored brew. A nice change of pace from the lighter green, which can get monotonous on longer trips. I love coffee, but it is heavier and bulkier.
Also, it has a strong smell which can advertise a human's presence to bears. Don't know if they're coffee drinkers, but it sure let's 'em know you're around.

[Daniel Benthal]

Hot Spiced Cider with a little Yukon Jack is always nice!

[Bill Fornshell]

Eric,
I discovered that if I added a scoop of Carnation Instant Breakfast mix to my feeding tube liquid stuff I could drink it by mouth. That one thing was how I was able to start gaining my weight back. By drinking my liquid stuff by mouth I didn't need to spend the 3 to 4 hours a day with a feeding tube plugged into me. My weight went up fast as I was able to go to a thicker (more calories) mix by drinking it. When I had gained 20 of the 35 pounds I had lost I asked to have the feeding tube connector removed. Out it came.
That was a happy.

For my hike I will still add a scoop of the Carnation mix to each serving of my Dry Ensure but I will also carry enough Carnation mix for a warm drink each night. I will mix it with NIDO Dry Whole Milk mix. I can drink the Dry Ensure warm when or if I want to heat the water. I am not carring much in the way of cooking gear but will have a small pot (BMW SUL-500 Ti Cook Pot) and a way to make a small fire. Esbits – Esbits.

[James Pitts]

Almost always Tea (earl grey) or coffee (Java Juice). Coco sometimes when I am in the mood to pack it.

[Christopher Plesko]

Tea and cocoa are my luxury/pick me up item. I usually only make a hot dinner but have enough esbits for some tea on a cold morning or a rainy stop. Tea with a little honey makes me smile.

[James Pitts]

Ever try "honey packets" from fast food stores that sell biscuits. Any good southerner will tell you that a biscuit is properly eaten with honey…. ;) Anyway, I digress. I thought these were awful and I found out why. The ones I found weren't honey! They were "honey sauce" (ungh!) which was basically corn syrup. I drink my tea and coffee without sugar but I thought this was funny.

[Eric Noble]

Bill, I've never considered drinking Carnation Instant Breakfast warm. More food for thought. I'll try it. I've said it before but, it makes me very happy that you're out on the trail.

[Richard Matthews]

Honey is difficult to carry. Mexican restaurants sometimes have honey packets for sopapillas.

I would be very interested in containers to carry bulk honey.

Hot Jello is another idea. I hike with a guy that likes hot Gatorade – go figure. Sometimes I do not get enough fiber with hiking food so I carry orange jello mixed with soluble fiber.

I have a conflict of interest because my daughter works for Celestial Seasonings. Eric, you should see her roll her eyes when I tell her that chai tea is redundant.

[Jim Colten]

SARBAR's website (URL available in her BPL profile) lists a couple sources for small serving honey packets.

I haven't been in a Mac&Don's for a couple years but they used to have honey packets as a dip for chicken nuggets. Maybe still do.

[Eric Noble]

Richard, my mother used to make hot jello for me as a kid when I would get sick. I haven't had that in years. That's another good idea. I remember it tasting good but my tastes may have changed. I'll try it again. I work in Boulder, not far from where your daughter probably works. I haven't been on a tour of the plant yet but I'm told the peppermint room is something else.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

You want honey packets? Get to Starbucks ;-) Best source around. Also Minimus.biz carries them.

[James Pitts]

Indeed I checked their web site and McDonalds honey is in fact honey. I forgot they served biscuits too. Oh well, that was a long time ago! :)

[Bob Bankhead]

I've found that Egg McMuffins – both plain and with sausage – travel very well in a backpack and make a great first-day lunch and trail snack. They take up very little room in your pack and can easily be eaten while on the go. I always leave town with at least 2, usually 4.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

The Awful M is also great for getting wetnaps. Some McD's have them out by the straws, others you have to ask. I figure if I actually eat there, I can beg for them. They are pretty good quality for "handwashing". McD's also has good ranch and BBQ sauce tubs, and the honey mustard in squeeze packets is great. The mild picante sauce packets are my favorite for use. If my husband eats there on the way to the trail, I ask for 3 times. They usually will do it.

[Kevin Pietriyk]

Wayne,

You might want to check your local health food/organic grocery store for Teeccino, or their website is http://www.teeccino.com . I've had it before, it's pretty good if you're a big coffee drinker and need to stick close to that flavor. There are all sorts of herbal teas out there, my favorites are ginger tea that my wife gets from Japan, and homemade sumac tea sweetened with stevia. I usually try to keep different things on hand to make up a tea to suit my mood- peppermint, nettles, chamomile, sumac, etc.

I used to drink several cups of coffee each day, along with at least a 2-liter bottle of Coke or Mountain Dew. Giving up the sugar and caffeine was almost as good as quitting tobacco! I keep a ziploc pinned to my bulletin board in my office that has the same amount of corn sugar in it as a 2-liter of Coke. That usually helps fend off any cravings.

On the trail, I usually only have a hot beverage at night, unless it's cold in the morning. We got "DIY" teabags from my MIL in Japan- you can fill them with whatever you want. Lately, I've been drinking a spiced sumac mixture with cinnamon, ginger, clove and a tiny tiny pinch of cayenne, sweetened with stevia extract.

[Douglas Frick]

Hot Jell-O hits the spot quickly when I'm cold and trying to get camp set up. I used to save the Jell-O for dessert, but now it's often the first course. I usually stretch it from the suggested 2 cups to 3 cups or a liter, since I don't need (or want) it to set up. If any leftover liquid does set up in my pot, the next round of water heating takes care of that. It's a bit heavy at 3.5 oz, but another way of looking at it is that it's 76g of sugar, which weighs the same in one form or another.

[Michael Schurr]

Hot Tang is tasty.

[Doug L]

I tried this recipe out a few years back that I read in backpacker magazine. It's a hot-chocolate/dried coconut cream powder/potato flake combination. BTW the potato flakes are just a thickener, it doesn't taste "potatoey". The calories in the coconut cream powder and potato flakes really add some lightweight energy to your diet. Coconut cream powder is pretty easy to find at Asian grocery stores or on-line and is great if you want to make a Thai curry dish on the same trip.

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