What's Brewing?

You might remember me, I am Blackie the Spider. I arrived at the Woodpile when Chippy opened up a portal to the spirit world. I am a potion master by trade although there isn’t much call from my special skill set. I do get the occasional request for a love potion or to cure a wart after some critter foolishly kisses a toad thinking it will turn into a prince. Most of the time you will find me in my apothecary shop selling bottles of aspirin and fur gel.

The annual Woodpile Halloween party is coming up soon. Chippy asked me to “brew” a special Halloween punch for the party. I have never understood the obsession critters and humans alike have for alcoholic beverages but on the plus side I do a steady business in hangover cures. Suffice to say, I had no idea how to “brew” punch. I trolled through some old dusty cookbooks at the library looking for recipes. I found a promising recipe from the 1920s but some of the ingredients sounded like they would be hard to obtain. On the bright side, it was a non-alcoholic punch.

Critter Punch Brew

Gallon of Ginger Ale (5% Ginger)

Quart of Cranberry Juice (aged 10 years preferably)

1/4 lb of pumpkin seeds

1 Bone

Chipmunk Tail

 *Put all ingredients into cast iron pot. Bring to boil. Stir with witch’s broom for 5 minutes.

 

 I asked the ever resourceful Woodpilers to help me get a pumpkin and a witch's broom.

 … but, I wisely decided not to ask where they got the supplies. (They looked like they were concerned the original owner might come looking for their pumpkin.)

 I was running behind schedule and asked them to cut up the pumpkin and collect the seeds. Lesson learned, never leave a chipmunk in charge of seeds, they have a habit of disappearing.

 Then I asked for a bird volunteer to collect the seeds, well, that was a big mistake too!

 

Chippy helped gather wood for a fire and moved the cast iron cauldron on to it. Bushy’s grandmother donated one of her calcium supplement bones.

Chippy asked if he could be of further assistance, but before I could grab his tail, he got a call from his wife and ran off to the store for milk.

 

A couple of other ‘munks dropped by and I asked them to help take to cover off the cauldron. While they struggled with the heavy lid, I figured I had enough time to grab my scissors and get myself a chipmunk tail.

I seriously underestimated the strength of two chipmunks, they had the  lid off in a jiffy.

Chippy came by later to see how things were “brewing.” The recipe called for chipmunk tail, I thought if I can’t get a tail maybe I could just throw a whole ‘munk into the pot.

I encouraged him to take sip of the punch. While he hung on by his back paws trying to avoided becoming part of the brew, I tickled his tail and in he went. Finally success!

 

Chippy popped back up and said “Blackie, you do realize you are suppose to light the fire?”

 

Then he whispered in my ears, “It doesn’t taste right, I think you forgot the chipmunk tail.” I must have looked dumbstruck because Chippy explained, “You don’t know what chipmunk tail is do you?! Back during Critter Prohibition,  chipmunk tail was the code name for a bottle of sunflower seed moonshine.”