The cold weather continues in California, and so I turned to some more hot cocktails to keep me company at night. Because there’s only so much warmth that inanimate stuffed animals can give, no matter how fuzzy they are.
I had frequently heard about “hot buttered rum,” and yet I had never tried it. So I tried a recipe from Aaron McCargo Jr.:
Hot Buttered Rum
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
dash of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
2 oz dark rum
6 oz boiling water
Muddle the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg at the bottom of a mug, then add the dark rum and boiling water and stir. I didn’t actually taste the butter or the sugar very much. Either there was too much rum or the spices were overpowering. It just tasted like rum with a bit of spice and a hint of sweetness. I was hoping the butter would make it taste sinfully rich, but I missed that.
Next I tried a really simple cocktail, the Stonewall.
Stonewall
1 oz rum
1 cup warm apple cider
It basically does just taste like warm apple cider and rum, as you might guess from the ingredients. You could probably put any kind of liquor in there. And maybe even a little more than an ounce. But it’s a nice warm drink for cold nights, with not too much alcohol.
Lastly, I made another cider-based drink:
Steelers Cider
2.5 oz bourbon
10 oz apple cider
2 cloves
1/2 lemon, sliced
cinnamon stick
You make this by just throwing the bourbon, apple cider, cloves, lemon slices, and cinnamon stick into a saucepan, and then heating it up until it starts to bubble. You can also add some ground allspice, but I didn’t have any so I didn’t. The bourbon tastes pretty strong in this, despite there being four times as much cider as bourbon. The lemon and the spices do give the drink a nice comforting taste, and it’s definitely a nice drink on a cold night. I’d maybe decrease the bourbon a tad, though.