Back in my childhood I remember very well one New Year's afternoon, Dad was trying to light on fire some plum pudding with brandy unsuccessfully...finally resorted to some white lightning, nearly had an explosion, plum pudding lit up right away.
Well...that's one way to do it!
Too funny!
Hehehe...hope it didn't torch the pudding.
I don't know what the procedure is for lighting a plum pudding but for beef burgundy what I do is pour the wine in a ladle and set it in the stew until I can see the vapors...evaporating. Then I just stick the match in the vapors and pour the wine into stew.
LOL! Was it too charred to eat after that?