“More terrible news for you! While spending those few days in shell holes, I developed a passion for the army issue of rum. The conditions were so cold and wretched and the entertainment so poor, that rum certainly engenders a little warmth. So I used quite to look forward to the form of an officer with a rum jar looming out of the darkness, though I could not swallow the stuff under ordinary circumstances. As a matter of fact, though the rum feels warm when trickling down the throat, its genuine warming properties do not compare with those of a cup of hot tea, even to one like myself to whom spirits are a new joy.”

Entry dated November 9th, 1917, War Diary 1917 – 1919, by Aleyn Lyell Reade [ALR. A. 1. 2].