BBC Scotland reports that the tiny town of Newburgh in county Fife has a wonderful Christmas tradition. For the past 20 years, this tiny town selects one student each year to get their Christmas drawing made into an illuminated creation that lights up the town’s streets.
Nobody remembers exactly how it started (likely a proposal by a local school teacher), but continues every year. Once a winning proposal is selected, the artwork is sent to Blachere Illumination to convert them into the massive street light. They are then hung up around town for the enjoyment of all.
Snapdragon was a holiday parlor game popular in England from about the 16th century. It’s typically played at gatherings on Christmas Eve by placing heated brandy in a wide, shallow dish with raisins. The lights are turned off and the brandy is set alight. The participants then try to snatch raisins from the fire and eat the lit fruit.
There is even a poem recorded in Robert Chambers’ Book of days (1879) you are supposed to recite while playing:
Take care you don’t take too much, Be not greedy in your clutch, Snip! Snap! Dragon!
With his blue and lapping tongue Many of you will be stung, Snip! Snap! Dragon!
For he snaps at all that comes Snatching at his feast of plums, Snip! Snap! Dragon!
But Old Christmas makes him come, Though he looks so fee! fa! fum! Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Don’t ‘ee fear him but be bold – Out he goes his flames are cold, Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Raisins: Buy good quality ones that aren’t squished. The bigger/beefier they are, the easier they are to grab. The sweeter they are gives them a great taste when mixed with brandy.
Brandy (or rum): 50% (100 proof) smooth, sweet brandy/rum. I found Domaine Tariquet 8 year Bas-Armagnac (cask strength) worked really well. It tasted delicious and burned really well. You’ll probably want to buy a 750ml bottle as you’ll use about half of it per play.
Salt – throwing in pinches of salt adds sparking effects that really look cool
[Advanced gameplay] Almonds: While they do work, I found they did conduct heat more and upped the difficulty because some items were squishy and others hard when grabbing them from the flames.
Instructions:
Get a large, flat, shallow dish – The dish needs to handle being set on fire and getting very hot. Corelle plates seemed to work well. The dish is going to get very hot so you might also want to put a hot pad under the dish so that it doesn’t ruin the table surface you place it on.
Cookie sheet and CLEAR play area – I found that flaming brandy does indeed splash or drip onto the table as you snatched raisins out. Having the dish in a tray keeps from damaging your play surface. You are literally playing with fire – so take all precautions. Make sure your table top and whole area is 100% clear of flammables. Someone might freak and fling a flaming raisin across the table/room. It might be worthwhile to have a damp blanket around to smother flames and baking soda. Remember that water will spread an alcohol fire.
Pour the raisins (and almonds) on the plate – Make sure the raisins are mostly unstuck and can be grabbed individually or in a bunch of no more than 2-3.
Pour ½ to ¾ cup of brandy onto the dish with the raisins. The liquid should not cover the raisins completely.
Warm ¼ cup of brandy in a pan until it’s good and hot – but not boiling. Pour it on top the raisins. Heating part of the brandy supposedly volatilizes the alcohol, increases the amount of vapor, and makes it easier to set alight).
In hindsight, I probably used too much brandy. The raisins were almost all completely below the surface of the brandy. The flames were, to be honest, way too high and too hot to do anything with. I tried grabbing a few fruits, but ended up splashing lots of flaming blue liquid around and getting lots of heat since I had to really dive into the flaming liquid.
I was also getting LOTS of yellow flame. Yellow flame is the hottest kind of flame and will burn you.
Try, try again
For the second try, I used a lot less brandy. I re-stocked the raisins/almonds and then poured enough brandy to only submerge up to about½ to ¾ of a raisin. The tops were in the open air. It still created a decent initial flame, but then the magic started.
According to the Atlas Obscura article, you’re shooting for blue flames which are the result of chemiluminescence, not thermal radiation of yellow flames. As the initial yellow flames burned down, the raisins started poking through the surface of the brandy – making them easier to grab. The flame also started dancing back and forth around the dish – making it EXTREMELY fun to try and time a grab when no flames were in a particular area. It also meant the raisins were warm and brandy filled. Delicious!
When the flame is lapping and mostly blue was the absolute fun time to play. However, it was also towards the last few minutes before the flames died out. Over all, from first lighting to end was only a few minutes – so when you light it up – make sure everyone is ready to play right away!
Here’s what it looked like at the right flame level and me grabbing a few raisins.
Conclusion
I agreed with the other articles – this was absolutely a fun game and definitely worth a shot among adults that don’t mind a little danger and adventure. We’re probably too far along in protective parenting to make this a kids game, but teens might give it a go.
Don’t add almonds your first go. Adding almonds makes things harder for two reasons: there are some hard and some squishy items in the dish and makes judging your snatch from the flames harder. Secondly, the almonds do conduct more heat and can be a hotter grab than raisins towards the end of the game. Finally, they can get a burned coating which makes them not as tasty as boozy raisins.
Ensure the tops of the raisins are above the surface of the brandy. Makes them easy to spot and grab because you’re not dipping so deeply into the flaming liquid
40-50% alcohol Brandy. 50%/100 proof liquid really burned hot at first, but produced a really nice, long game. I wouldn’t go higher than that.
Sweet brandy – Sweeter/smoother brandy made the soaked raisins taste fantastic. Splurging for a sweeter, high quality smooth brandy really paid off.
Keep a wet towel in arms reach and some baking soda to smother or cover any spills or flaming/burning accidents.
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Amazing camera work shows how incredible their performance is.
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Are you slapping together that next big startup idea pitch reel? Want to become a streamer or Youtube star? At some point, you’re going to need some background music to fill dead spaces, set the tone, etc. But how does one avoid a dreaded DMCA takedown?
While there are lots of online shops that will sell you royalty-free music, I usually find myself running off to find the amazing amounts of free stuff out there – like this.
