Hot Buttered Rum
- 2 oz60 ml aged or Jamaican rum
- ½ oz15 ml brown sugar syrup
- 2 tsp10 ml unsalted butter, softened
- ¼ tsp1 ml ground allspice and cloves, mixed
- 4 oz120 ml boiling water
- Warm a mug with hot water, then empty it.
- Add the syrup, butter and spice with a splash of the boiling water, and stir until the butter melts.
- Pour in the rum, top with the rest of the hot water and stir again.
- Grate a little nutmeg over the top.
Garnish: freshly grated nutmeg
The syrup
In this recipe
Brown Sugar Syrup½ oz15 ml
Brown sugar syrup is packed brown sugar simmered briefly with an equal volume of water.
1/2 oz brown sugar syrup replaces the sugar (or the sugar in a batter). It's a little sweeter than Thomas's teaspoon, closer to a modern batter. Use 1/4 oz for the 1862 level.
As printed: 1 tsp sugar (Thomas, 1862); 1 tsp brown sugar (Kindred). Modern bars (Imbibe) use a heaping spoonful of creamed butter-sugar-spice batter.
Or use
Demerara Syrup¼ oz7 ml
Demerara syrup is demerara sugar dissolved in water, usually rich: 2 parts sugar to 1 part water by weight.
2:1 demerara at 1/4-1/3 oz gives the same sweetness with a raw-sugar edge.
As printed: Same as above.
Or use
Cinnamon Syrup½ oz15 ml
Cinnamon syrup is simple syrup infused with whole cinnamon sticks.
Use instead of brown sugar syrup and skip the ground spice for a smooth, grit-free drink. That swaps Thomas's allspice-and-clove profile for the cinnamon of modern batters.
As printed: Thomas spices with allspice and cloves; most modern batters lean on cinnamon and nutmeg.
Where it comes from
Hot rum with butter goes back to colonial America. Jerry Thomas printed a 'Hot Spiced Rum' of sugar, Jamaica rum, allspice, cloves, a nub of butter and hot water in 1862, and Trader Vic later championed a premixed butter, brown sugar and spice batter.
Source: How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant's Companion (Bar-Tender's Guide) by Jerry Thomas (1862).
Checked against: Jerry Thomas, How to Mix Drinks (1862), scan on archive.org · Kindred Cocktails: Hot Buttered Rum · Imbibe: Hot Buttered Rum · Wikipedia: Hot buttered rum (history only)
Gear for this drink
OXO SteeL Angled Measuring Jigger
Zulay Kitchen 2-in-1 Metal Lemon & Lime Squeezer
Best for Fresh citrus for sours and lemonade