Pimento Liqueur - Tiki Drinks and Food

ELL Early Landed Larry Member Joined: Apr 17, 2017 Posts: 94	ELL Early Landed Larry Posted posted on Fri, Sep 8, 2017 11:22 AM I felt the need to comment on this as I needed to make some new allspice dram this week. Previously I've made this following the Serious Eats recipe, which is itself a lot like the Berry one on the Total Tiki app. Both call for extracting the allspice flavours by soaking in light rum for a week or two. This time I decided to try making a syrup first, which I was inspired to do by a poster on here - but I cannot find the thread that originally suggested this now! Sorry. The big advantage of this is that you have a useable dram the next day, so if you're gagging for some Navy Grogs, it beats waiting for spices to steep in a fairly low ABV booze for half a month. (I've made some home amaro before, and this interested me, as the general rule for people who are serious about making infusions is to use the highest proof alcohol available - I guess it doesn't matter as much if you're using dried spice, as the risk of it going off is minimal, but even so - light rum doesn't imo produce a very good extraction). So in total I ended up doing this: 1 cup roughly broken allspice berries, with the smaller dust sieved and removed and one small Ceylon cinnamon stick 1.5 cups water 1cup brown sugar Half a cup of Havana 3 and half a cup of Goslings 151 for the rum. Simmer the allspice, sugar and water for 15 mins, adding the cinnamon at the end. Leave standing overnight. Strain carefully into a clean pan, and again if necessary to remove all the particles. Add the rum, mix and bottle. This was fine to use the same evening, just as a regular infused syrup would have been, although I'm sure it will improve and round off over a week or two. I also put a decent pinch of black pepper in here, just to see! I think you can slightly taste it. The best thing about this is how easy it was to get a clean liquid! Sieving the broken spices before adding any liquid is the way forward, as the last ones I made had tonnes of bitty sediment that made them quite unpleasant towards the end. Thoughts on this method welcome - and my thanks to the poster who came up with the syrup-first idea!

I felt the need to comment on this as I needed to make some new allspice dram this week. Previously I've made this following the Serious Eats recipe, which is itself a lot like the Berry one on the Total Tiki app. Both call for extracting the allspice flavours by soaking in light rum for a week or two.

This time I decided to try making a syrup first, which I was inspired to do by a poster on here - but I cannot find the thread that originally suggested this now! Sorry.

The big advantage of this is that you have a useable dram the next day, so if you're gagging for some Navy Grogs, it beats waiting for spices to steep in a fairly low ABV booze for half a month. (I've made some home amaro before, and this interested me, as the general rule for people who are serious about making infusions is to use the highest proof alcohol available - I guess it doesn't matter as much if you're using dried spice, as the risk of it going off is minimal, but even so - light rum doesn't imo produce a very good extraction).

So in total I ended up doing this:

1 cup roughly broken allspice berries, with the smaller dust sieved and removed and one small Ceylon cinnamon stick
1.5 cups water
1cup brown sugar
Half a cup of Havana 3 and half a cup of Goslings 151 for the rum.

Simmer the allspice, sugar and water for 15 mins, adding the cinnamon at the end. Leave standing overnight.

Strain carefully into a clean pan, and again if necessary to remove all the particles. Add the rum, mix and bottle.

This was fine to use the same evening, just as a regular infused syrup would have been, although I'm sure it will improve and round off over a week or two.

I also put a decent pinch of black pepper in here, just to see! I think you can slightly taste it. The best thing about this is how easy it was to get a clean liquid! Sieving the broken spices before adding any liquid is the way forward, as the last ones I made had tonnes of bitty sediment that made them quite unpleasant towards the end. Thoughts on this method welcome - and my thanks to the poster who came up with the syrup-first idea!

Post #779582 by Early Landed Larry on Fri, Sep 8, 2017 11:22 AM