"Remember the first time Marino made his eggnog for us?" Lucy reminded them. "Wild Turkey, and lots of it. Red food coloring-for Christmas, of course. Whipped cream and peppermint candy sprinkles on top, served in frosted beer mugs. With those rather disgusting chocolate cupcakes you made." She pointed at Marino. "Green icing, little Christmas trees made out of cocktail toothpicks stuck in the middle of each one-and they were raw in the middle!"

"You're making me ill," Scarpetta exclaimed.

Lucy's laughter was loud and out of control. She held her stomach, hopping around the kitchen on one foot or the other as she howled and her aunt stirred.

"And he glued little red hots on the trees. Like ornaments. Put little stars on top. Like you get in the first grade for perfect attendance!" Lucy could barely talk, her eyes streaming as she laughed and shrieked.

Marino scowled at her.

"Everybody's got to start somewhere," he said.

Marino's Cause-Of-Death Eggnog

This night he was expecting to serve three people, but it was his nature to make more of everything than was either healthy or necessary. One could look at him and deduce his modus operandi with no further evidence than his flushed face and considerable size. He began with a dozen eggs, cracking each with violence. Yokes went into the blender and whites went into a stainless steel mixing bowl. He blended the yokes and folded in a pound of powdered sugar.

Although most of the hoi polloi prefer dark rum or bourbon | in their eggnog, Marino gives business to the Virginia economy and is a patron of a small family-owned distillery that makes moonshine. If you're shopping for first-rate corn liquor, you need to consider a few points. It must be legal, the still regularly inspected by ATE It is important that copper pipes and kettles and filtered water are part of the process and that high-grade corn is used.