Horror is rightfully most often associated with autumn. However, the long, cold nights, gray snowy days, and the isolated feeling that comes with winter, particularly in classic wintery climates, makes it an ideal season for horrific tales, ones that can entertain you throughout its longest months.
Nobody knows this better than the master of horror himself, Stephen King. A born and bred New Englander, he often sets his novels in and around his home turf. This area is known for long, snowy winters. So, it makes sense for winter to feature prominently in his stories.
I’ve selected three of these wintery classic Stephen King stories and paired them with three winter flavors from The Whistling Kettle. You can get 10% off your first order of any product at The Whistling Kettle if you use my code LAURASBOOKSANDBLOGS2025. In the meantime, here are three of my recommendations below.
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The Shining and winter dream
What’s scarier than a haunted hotel? Being snowed in in a haunted hotel, on top of a mountain, with a possessed husband, a psychic child, and seemingly no way out.
The Shining is a classic because of its fascinating premise which could easily have just been a compelling family drama or character study about a man attempting to overcome his demons and fulfill his dream of being a writer over the course of his temporary employment at the Overlook Hotel. Instead, King twists the premise into a dark tale about alcoholism, isolation, and purely evil energy.
Despite its very remote setting, this story is a busy one with constant action and stream-of-consciousness narrative. Psychic thoughts enclosed in parentheses frequently interrupt the plot and bring to light the buried horrific reality in which we find our doomed Torrance family. It creates a surreal tone full of thoughts and images that make you think, this can’t be happening, but it is. And it’s intense climactic ending brings it all to a raging head.
The Shining reminds us that isolation can be maddening, and as hard as we may fight our demons, sometimes, they win. And in this case, they couldn’t have picked a worse time to win.
Winter dream tea
Winter dream is a black tea that contains pieces of chocolate, peppermint, and red and pink peppercorns. One teaspoon should be brewed at 212 degrees Fahrenheit for three to five minutes.
At first sight, the unbrewed tea has a dark color with pops of red and green. It has a dark chocolate smell from the chocolate chips that are scattered throughout the leaves.
When brewed, the tea gives off a golden color and has a very faint chocolate smell. It tastes like a classic black tea with a chocolate after taste followed by that fresh feeling that comes from the peppermint without that lingering menthol taste.
I was expecting a more spicy tea than this, but I was pleasantly surprised by how classic tasting it is. A little sweetness brings out a more candy-like flavor, though it’s still sophisticated enough to use for your daily black tea fix.
I didn’t choose this pairing as an ironic play on the name winter dream. Instead, I chose it because of its light color mixed with its dark flavors. This layered, contradictory blend matches the themes of the novel. Being one of King’s most famous stories, I felt like the classic taste of this tea mirrors the classic reputation of this book. I can imagine Wendy Torrance sipping it while staring out one of the many windows of her winter prison in one of her last moments of peace before the ghosts emerge in full force.
The Dead Zone and oatmeal raisin cookie
Despite its title, The Dead Zone is more of a poignant tale than a horrific one. In just over 400 pages, we grow to love, admire, and root for our hero, Johnny Smith. After more than four years in a coma, Johnny awakens having lost everything he knows while also having gained a second sight. Now, this once ordinary schoolteacher is now being called upon to use his gift to help others while his ability slowly kills him.
The Dead Zone starts out as standard fiction with a supernatural twist and eventually dives into political thriller territory. Like early King works, it’s organized into sections within its numbered chapters within its named parts. These sections eventually turn into bullet points of heightened tension as Johnny sets out to stop a promising political candidate when his visions show him how this man, Greg Stillson, would cause a catastrophic chain of events if he is eventually elected president.
A large stretch of The Dead Zone takes place in the harsh New England winter. It makes for a dreary and frigid landscape that mirrors Johnny’s sadness and the pause button that had been pushed on his life. It’s a chilly setting from which Johnny cannot escape.
Oatmeal raisin cookie tea
Oatmeal raisin cookie is a black tea that contains lemon peel, cloves, cinnamon, oatmeal, sea salt, citric acid, maltodextrin, ascorbic acid, butter powder, buttermilk pieces, and raisins. One teaspoon is brewed at 212 degrees Fahrenheit for three to five minutes.
The dry tea is dark in color with pieces of oatmeal and raisins scattered through it. It smells faintly of cinnamon and oatmeal. When brewed, it’s a dark amber color and has no real smell.
The tea is light and subtle with the faint taste of oatmeal. Sweetness will bring out the cookie-like flavor without feeling like you’re munching away on junk food.
Oatmeal is considered a bland food, and while it can be punched up in the form of a cookie, it is also known as one of the blander cookies in the cookie world. However, twisting this flavor into a tea makes it unique and interesting, much like Johnny Smith who turns from a simple school teacher to a prescient seer who can alter the course of the entire world.
I imagine a steaming cup of oatmeal raisin cookie on the desk next to Johnny as he grades papers or writes in his notebook. It would be a small comfort to him in a complicated and scary world.
Misery and cozy cocoa
Misery is another novel that takes advantage of its wintery landscape. It opens with famous author Paul Sheldon waking up from a horrific car accident as he’s rescued by none other than superfan of his Misery romance series, Annie Wilkes, a former nurse with a sketchy medical history and a warped mind.
As Paul heals, his rescuer turned captor forces him to write another installment of the romance series he thought he had finally put behind him. Typing on a dilapidated typewriter all day helps Paul to pass the time while he’s holed up in Annie’s Colorado farmhouse. But as Annie becomes more and more unhinged, he realizes that he needs to take desperate measures to escape.
This book has all of the danger of The Shining without all of the convenient hiding places. King again twists an already compelling concept into something warped and dangerous. Littered with excerpts from his manuscript with the letters of his missing keys penciled in, this fictional world gives Paul a sense of control in an out of control situation.
One of the most vivid descriptions in the book is just how gross Annie is. Sometimes her depression is so bad that she can’t even be bothered to wipe the smeared food from her face. She’s like a wild animal. You never know when she will strike, and the scariest part is, there’s nowhere to run.
Cozy cocoa tea
Cozy cocoa is a rooibos tea which includes honeybrush, green rooibos, dehydrated vanilla marshmallows, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. One teaspoon is brewed at 212 degrees Fahrenheit for five minutes.
At first glance, the dry tea looks like bird seed with pieces of marshmallows mixed in. The marshmallow smell overpowers the dry tea. When brewed, it has a dark brown color with no detectable odor.
This tea tastes bold and smoky. When sweetened, it tastes like that final sip of hot chocolate with that film of melted marshmallows at the bottom of your cup.
I wouldn’t want Annie to get the wrong idea by associating her with a tea with the word “cozy” in it. The woman is anything but cozy. However, cozy cocoa sounds like a remedy, a cure for winter. It’s the kind of treatment that Paul Sheldon needed but didn’t get. However, we readers have it at our disposal as we read about him enduring and overcoming his months of torment.
What are your favorite wintery horror books? Which of these teas would you like to try? Leave your answers in the comments below!
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