There’s a saying I hold onto when the lantern burns low: food feeds the body, but drink feeds the spirit.
Out on the trail, or camped in a kayak clearing between mangroves and moonlit water, there’s no bartender to pour you something fancy. But there’s always a flask in your pack, a mess tin on the flame, and a season that practically demands a toast.
This time of the year Sean and I always have made time to paddle out to one of our favorite islands. A scrap of shell and sand tucked deep in Florida backcountry to mark the Halloween spirit in our own way. No decorations, no porch lights, only the shimmer of brackish water and the soft cry of an owl hunting over the flats.
After the baked apples bubbled in my Trangia Mess Tin Small 210 over the Snow Peak GigaPower Stove 2.0, I poured something darker, older, and a little haunted into my Snow Peak Ti-Mini Solo Combo cup. Because Halloween isn’t just for costumes; it’s for rituals. And sharing a drink with the night, listening to the shrill call of night herons and the distant howls of our local Skunk Apes, is one of them.
Dark Rum: The Classic Campfire Spirit
When apples and cranberries melt into syrup, there’s nothing better than a measure of spiced dark rum to finish the meal. It’s the flavor of campfire stories, of shipwrecks and salt spray, of something half-wild and half-holy.
Rum belongs to Florida the way moss belongs to cypress. Pirates drank it, wreckers smuggled it, and old Conchs still pour it into their coffee when the storms pass. It carries the scent of molasses, the sting of sea air, and the warmth of homecoming after a long paddle.
But that night, I carried something finer: a flask of Coronation Navy Rum, its deep amber catching lantern light like trapped fire. It’s a royal blend meant for sailors and kings, yet somehow it feels right in a titanium cup beside the mangroves. Because no throne can match the majesty of a Florida moon.
In the apples: Add a splash of dark rum into each cored apple before cooking. As they steam, the rum deepens the sweetness and pulls out the ghosts of orchards long gone.
In the cup: Pour a small dram neat, or mix with hot water for a “pirate’s toddy.” Sit back, sip slow, and let the warmth rise as night creatures stir. The rum whispers of coral reefs and coral crowns, of waves and wars and the long shadow of history carried in a flask.
Trailside Ritual: The Halloween Toast
If you want to make it count, offer a proper toast. Out here, the rules are simple, drink slow, look up at the stars, and mean what you say.
The Trail Toast
“To the seas that carried us, to the fires that warm us, to the unseen things that still walk the night. May our food be shared, our stories true, and our spirits brave.”
We poured our cups and drank in silence, the rum catching in the throat like a blessing. Then, from the palmetto edge, something moved… soft steps we could hear through dry palm fronds, heavy enough to break the hush. We watched the shadows, wondering if the old stories were truer than we thought. Maybe it was a raccoon. Maybe not.
Applejack & Calvados: Spirits of the Orchard
If rum is the sea’s offering, then Applejack and Calvados are the forest’s reply.
Sean, my friend and fellow paddler, swears by these orchard spirits. He says Applejack tastes like biting into the ghost of a frontier harvest. It has a sharp, bright, and autumnal taste. Calvados, on the other hand, is its French cousin, refined and patient, tasting of oak, smoke, and memory.
Applejack was America’s first spirit, distilled since colonial days. Early settlers made it by freezing cider through winter nights and drawing off the liquid fire. It’s the taste of early cabins, frostbitten mornings, and courage carried in tin flasks.
Calvados, born from Norman apples, feels older still. It’s the quiet after a bell tolls, the sweetness that lingers after a prayer.
Pair either with a hot baked apple and suddenly the Florida night tastes like fall. It’s like every orchard you’ve ever dreamed of, rising ghostlike through the mangroves.
Trail Secret: A Makeshift Flask
If you forgot a proper flask, don’t panic. That old aluminum GI canteen or a cleaned-out Nalgene bottle will do just fine. The trick is to wrap it in cloth, slip it under your kayak seat, and let the Gulf cool it like a swamp cellar.
By nightfall, your spirit will pour smooth and cold. It’s not fancy, but neither are we.
Side Note: I’m quietly hoping for a Christmas upgrade, a Snow Peak Round Titanium Flask (150 mL) or maybe the larger 250 mL model. Not for vanity, mind you, but for the poetry of it. There’s something noble about carrying spirits in titanium, as if the cup itself remembers every toast.
Why Spirits Matter Outdoors
The drink isn’t about getting drunk. It’s about grounding yourself when the wild begins to whisper.
A warm sip steadies your mind when the bush sounds too alive. It seals a meal into memory. It turns three paddlers around a lantern into a fellowship.
There’s a reason sailors poured rum before battle and explorers raised cups before a journey, it ties you to something eternal. The drink carries story, warmth, courage. It’s an anchor for the restless spirit.
And on Halloween, when the veil between worlds thins and even the mangroves seem to breathe, that little sip becomes a charm.
Field Wisdom: Always toast the land before you drink.
A Bushcraft Offering
Before you raise your cup, pour a small splash onto the ground. Not waste. Not superstition. A gift of spirits for the spirits.
The pinewoods, the mangroves, the sawgrass marshes all carry their own old stories. Some are whispered in folklore, some in the scrape of a heron’s wings, and some in the cold that crawls your spine when the palmettos sway without wind.
Offer the land its share, and maybe the spirits, both the kind you drink and the kind that drift unseen will leave you in peace.
The Thing in the Mangroves
That night, long after our apples were gone and the flask was light, we heard it again: the soft pad of something moving just beyond the light’s edge. The air held its breath. The tide had gone slack.
Sean whispered, “Maybe it’s El Pasoclaro.” He grinned, but his eyes stayed fixed on the dark. I laughed, quietly, not wanting to test the theory.
Florida has its legends: the Skunk Ape, the Ghost Deer of the Glades, the Fisher King of the Suwannee. But there, on that little island, every whisper felt true. The mangroves looked like old arms reaching, the moon’s reflection trembled like an eye.
We poured another round and toasted again to whatever shared the night with us. The Coronation Rum caught the lantern light and burned gold, and I swear the palmettos rustled in reply.
Trail Wisdom: The Ghosts of Gear
Old gear holds ghosts.
My Trangia Mess Tin 210 has seen more camps than I can count. Its lid carries soot from the Withlacoochee, the Suwannee, the Ten Thousand Islands. My Snow Peak GigaPower stove has outlasted storms, salt spray, and years of teaching scouts how to cook with care.
These tools carry stories, and stories carry spirits. One day, I’ll hand the stove to my son, flame-tested and still hissing with life. Maybe he’ll cook apples in that same tin and taste what I tasted that Halloween night. Maybe he’ll add his own toast to the wind.
That’s the real ritual—passing fire, food, and story from one generation to the next.
Trailside Reflections
We paddled home beneath a half-moon that hung like a blade above the estuary. The rum’s warmth stayed with us. The apples had gone cold, but the memory burned bright.
Halloween reminds us that the woods are not empty. The river remembers. The fire listens. Every meal cooked under the stars becomes an offering—part fuel, part prayer.
So, wherever you find yourself this October—on a barrier island, in a pine flatwoods, or at your own backyard fire—raise a tin cup and toast the unseen.
The Final Toast
“To the friends beside us, the ghosts behind us, and the wild before us.
To warmth, and story, and the courage to meet the dark.
To the spirit in the flask and the spirit in the trees.
Happy Halloween, and fair winds home.”
Happy Halloween, my friends.
Eat well. Drink wisely.
And leave a little for the ones who watch from the dark.
Liquid Rhythm Adventures' Journal 