Post #739546 by JenTiki on Tue, Mar 17, 2015 2:00 PM

I would suggest getting a good carbonating device. I have a Soda Stream that I love. The Soda Stream can only be used to carbnote water (don't trust the YouTube videos experimenting with other liquids, I also killed mine with apple juice), but you can then add any sort of liquid flavoring to create the carbonated beverage of your choice. I like to add ginger syrup to mine for an inexpensive ginger ale. Passion fruit syrup also works well, or any of the BG Reynolds syrups. Once you have a tropical flavored soda, you can add other things to make a cocktail. One thing I've noticed is that people often experience the "bite" from ginger as "heat" from alcohol. I noticed when I made ginger rum balls (with extreme amounts of ginger, but not a lot of rum) I heard a lot of people say, wow those are really strong. So they were getting that from the ginger.

Another thought is that a lot of the darker "sipping" rums still have that strong molasses flavor that doesn't get distilled out completely in the process. Molasses is sold in most grocery stores in the baking aisle. I would think a combination of molasses, ginger, and a decent imitation rum "extract" would come pretty close to fooling a lot of people.