This world and its inhabitants belong to C.S. Lewis. I am borrowing them for my own amusement and will return them unharmed.
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The wine arcs down into his goblet in a dark stream, and as the puff of warm spiced air hits his nostrils...
Sitting huddled under layers of furs in an icy sleigh, his own breath is freezing in the air. He wishes for something warm, and as if in a dream, the most beautiful, most frightening woman he has ever seen makes the cup appear out of thin air. The warm, acidic bite of the wine is like nothing he's ever tasted before, spicy and pleasant, but it can't quite wash away the thick stickiness of Turkish Delight. He says it is delicious, and as the woman smiles her cold beautiful smile at him, he pretends that his drink can rinse the bitter taste of his own betrayal away.
The scent is paralyzingly familiar, and unbidden his mind races through the memories, the second time he'd tasted it—
Celebrating Narnia's first Witch-less winter, he sits beside his sisters at the High Table, feasting and laughing together with his new subjects. He is merry through the night, even laughing at the young foxes' reenactment of the Witch's demise, but then Peter raises a goblet ("To family!"), and when the wine touches his lips, Edmund nearly chokes at the awful familiarity of it and finds that he has not quite forgiven himself. He sets down the goblet so quickly it splashes a little, and it is many years before he tastes it again.
He can hear the voices around him, Peter is nearly shouting, Professor Kirke's goblet has shattered on the floor and the sound jerks him to the next memory...
Rabadash has grown steadily less polite the last few days that the Narnians have spent in Tashbaan. Susan continues to be pleasant and gracious as always, but she is no longer enamored of the dashing Calormene, and he knows it. Edmund is watchful, and worried, and he feels the old anger beginning to grow inside him. That night Rabadash offers a goblet to Susan, his mouth full of honey and his eyes full of poison. Edmund intercepts it, and as he stares Rabadash in the eyes, he swallows the over-spiced liquid in a single, burning gulp, "accidentally" dropping the crystal goblet to shatter on the floor. Later, when Tumnus finds him struggling to stay conscious in his rooms and gives him bitter herbs to make him sick, Edmund thinks he likes the wine better coming up than going down.
The ghostly form before them looks a little like Caspian, he thinks, and at that the last memory rises up—
Standing, shaking with cold and dripping wet, on the deck of the Dawn Treader, a sailor comes up behind him and wraps him in a rough blanket that feels like burlap. Caspian hands him a goblet, and as he apologizes for Eustace, (the third time in five minutes) he takes a drink without thinking. The others think that he chokes only because of the unexpected warmth, but he sees Lucy glance at him, and the look in her eyes is half sorrowful, half teasing. He says nothing, and finishes the goblet quickly, but the taste stays with him for hours.
"…I am Peter, the High King."
The shape of the Narnian fades and the girls begin to exclaim to Eustace and Peter. Beside him, Aunt Polly lets out the breath that she has been holding, and thoughtfully, Edmund picks up his glass of wine. He stares at its dark, steaming surface, and thinks that it looks a little like a ring. Or a pool, darkly shadowed in a wood somewhere between the worlds. His eyes meet Peter's across the table and he nods. And drinks, for the fifth time, his spiced wine.
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Note: J.M. Barrie said "God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December." I've found that scents and tastes can evoke extremely powerful memories; this ficlet came out of one such experience.