December Drink of the Month - Hot Buttered Rum

I've been making a lot of fun drinks this month, and I've gone through a couple of possible Drinks of the Month over the past few weeks. I considered  few, and some might make it into the new few months (hello new uses for cachaca), but everything changed once the temperature dropped and we got a white Christmas in South Bend. From that point on, as we froze going from our car to the store, only a warm drink made any sense. Luckily, I'd just begun reading the excellent Smuggler's Cove book that I got from my birthday last year (yes, I know that was last January, but we had a baby, so sue me). They have an excellent recipe for Hot Buttered Rum, and I promptly whipped up a batch for Christmas, and then another to take to my parents once we went through the whole first batch.

The Smuggler's Cove recipe is genius, in that you can make up most of the drink ahead of time. Once you've whipped up their "batter," all you need to do is add rum and hot water to serve. The batter takes 15-20 minutes to take, and is good until the butter you use passes its expiration date. We adjusted down their recipe and changed one or two ingredients, but the gist is still the same. Below is the recipe for the buttered "batter," and the drink recipe will follow.

For the "Batter":

Pre-batched Batter

First, prepare the spice mixture for the batter - 1/2 teaspoon of each of the following: cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, allspice, black pepper, and ginger. Combine, and set aside for later. In a sauce pot, melt 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter over a low heat. Once the butter has melted, add 2 cups brown sugar, and stir to combine fully. Add 1 tablespoon of molasses and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and combine. Finally, add spice mixture, and stir over low heat until butter is completely integrated into the mixture (it will tend to separate out initially - keep stirring until it is fully incorporated). Allow the mixture to cool slightly, and then pour into a glass jar and store in the refrigerator.

For the Hot Buttered Rum:

In a ceramic or glass coffee mug, combine 3 barspoons of the rum batter with 1 1/2 ounces of aged (golden) rum.* Top with 6 ounces of hot water, and stir until the batter is completely dissolved.

*Dark rum also works for this recipe - we used the Plantation overproof dark rum, and that packed a significant kick! But mostly we drank these with Appleton Estate Signature Blend, and that was just fine!

We hope you enjoy your hot buttered rum!