hot buttered rum

As the weather started to get colder here in Boston, one of the owners at Loyal Nine inquired if I had any hot cocktail ideas. Since we feature a lot of rum on the menu, I began to consider options like converting a drink into a hot one like the Hot Zombie and Sazerac Toddy. Instead, I proposed a classic route of Hot Buttered Rum that included both classic winter spices as well as the spice blend that appears in our house Piccalilli -- a British condiment spice blend based on Indian spices that made its way over to the American Colonies. While I will keep the house spice blend ingredients off the blog, I will share the rest of the technique and recipe.

Hot Buttered Rum Batter
• 4 oz Cultured Butter
• 8 oz Demerara (or Brown) Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon (powder)
• 1/4 tsp Clove (powder)
• 1/4 tsp Nutmeg (grated)
• 1/4 tsp Allspice (powder)
Blend the ingredients together using a paddle adapter on a bowl mixer. Let the spices infuse in the butter-sugar carrier overnight in the refrigerator. Keep this batter refrigerated between uses (although the cultured aspect will allow it to be kept at room temperature during service).
Note: With the additional 6 spices, some are toasted and all 6 are not powderized. The spices are powderized in a blender using some of the sugar as a bulking agent to interact with the blender blades. Eventually all of the sugar is blended to a fine powder before mixing this spiced sugar with the butter. The measurements above were for the pilot batch and the production batch is four times the size yielding 3 pounds of batter.

Hot Buttered Rum
• 1 1/2 oz Old Ipswich (Turkey Shore) Tavern Style Rum
• 2 heaping tsp Batter
• ~8 oz Boiling Water
Preheat a small coffee cup with additional hot water. Dump the water, build the drink with part of the hot water, stir to mix, and top off with the rest of the water. Other spirits and liqueurs will work well here besides the aged rum.

With the classic spices, the drink would be delicious, but the additional spices round out the flavor and aroma and make for a good complement to our restaurant's food and spicing. For a spirit, I opted for a rich aged rum made here in state, namely Old Ipswich's Tavern Style Rum. During our staff holiday party a few days ago, I made chef one with the Bittermens Malört that we keep for him, and that was a big hit, so perhaps the Bäska Snaps one will hit the menu as an option. Also, many hot buttered rum batter recipes call for brown sugar; however, most brown sugar is purified white sugar that has been sprayed and dyed with molasses. Therefore, I opted for our high quality demerara sugar that adds a glorious rich molasses flavor to the drink without as much processing.
Update: Hot Buttered Malört is now a reality. It is an option in the Hot Buttered Rum menu item to drink like chef! Same preparation as above with 1 1/2 oz Bäska Snaps Malört filling in for the aged rum.