Winter cocktail ideas?

The temperatures have dropped to the 40s here in Austin and I couldn't be happier for the cool season ahead. We're having company over this weekend and plan to sit around the fire pit making s'mores and sipping cocoa. A few years ago we followed a hot buttered rum recipe from an old mixing book and thought it was awful. I was checking out this old HBR thread for ideas on improvements and got some ideas:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=5620&forum=10

But I'm not sure if hot buttered rum is necessarily the route I want to go this year. So I started a new thread to see if anyone has their own signature cocktail they enjoy during the holiday season. It doesn't have to be a hot buttered rum or even a rum-based drink (let's break out the bourbon!). I'm just looking for something soothing to sip on with mixed company on a cold winter night that has a little spice and a lot of kick. Or the other way around.

Note: I'm a fan of cider and butterscotch...

I dig hot buttered rum and Tom and Jerrys (is there a difference?) but I find that heating up some spiced apple cider (Trader Joe's, etc) and adding some Smith & Cross is pretty awesome

I take the family on a Thanksgiving camping trip every year and usually make up a batch of hot buttered rum to take along but this year I'm also looking for a change of pace. This coming week I hope to play around with a "Lord Godalming's Burnt Rum Punch" recipe that borrows a few pages from Dave Wondrich and a few pages from Bram Stoker. I'm looking for the autumn spicyness of hot buttered rum without the over the top richness and I will be sure to post the recipe and my thoughts here.

Kill Devil: Will have to try that. Any excuse to break out the Smith & Cross.

Sunny: Please report back!

Meanwhile, we started experimenting. Just whipped up some of this hot butterscotch to try as an alternate to hot cocoa and it was freaking delicious.

http://happybladderblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/hot-butterscotch/

I added 1/2 oz of Kraken to mine and it was really nice. Will try going a little heavier with the rum next time and see if I can keep a good balance without overpowering the rich flavors. This will definitely be served at our party per the recipe on the website and we'll let people add rum to taste if they desire.

Still looking for more ideas...

On 2014-11-12 10:50, Kill Devil wrote:
I dig hot buttered rum and Tom and Jerrys (is there a difference?) but I find that heating up some spiced apple cider (Trader Joe's, etc) and adding some Smith & Cross is pretty awesome

A Tom and Jerry is nothing like a hot buttered rum... the close relative would be eggnog.

Hot buttered rum is compound butter, rum, and hot water (or cider if you want more sweet).

You could actually make more modern cocktails if you really want, such as the baked apple (hot sprits infused with tea, fruit and botanicals).

A pre-Grog Log book I have in my collection is The Tropical Bar Book, by Charles Schumann, published in English in 1989 (original German, in 1986). Out of print book, worth adding to your bar library, and can be had cheaply on Amazon. Informative and well illustrated, beyond simply the recipes, and interspersed with related literary selections by Hemingway, Graham Greene, Malcolm Lowry, et al.
There are several hot punch and grog recipes, but a good, simple one that I enjoy in cold weather, is...

Mexican Coffee
1-1/2 oz. gold tequila
3/4 oz. Kahlua
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 cup hot coffee or espresso
Top with whipped cream.

Works well, subbing rum for tequila, too.

Here's a thread with wintery tiki cocktails:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=16814&forum=10&hilite=christmas island

Thanks arriano. I searched five different key words like winter, hot, warm, etc before starting a new thread for this but didn't think to search Christmas. Woops. At any rate, I believe a Christmas Island will be my next taste test.

Also, AceExplorer emailed me several PDF files worth of Christmas cocktails he's compiled (including the Christmas Island and Traders Sam's drinks that were mentioned in the other thread) which I'm sure he'll share with others on request.

Cocktail author and TCer David "Professor Cocktail" Montgomery (djmont) has a holiday cocktail ebook available here for the bargain price of $2.99:

http://professorcocktail.com/my-books

Just made a Christmas Island per arriano's instructions and it's rich, delicious and Christmas-y! I added some red sprinkles on top to go with the green of the spent lime to give it some extra holiday cheer.

arriano, is this your original creation?

[ Edited by: mikehooker 2014-11-14 19:27 ]

seems like somewhere around here there was mention of the hot zombie from little fragrant tiare's blog.

also, there was a hot chartreuse swizzle mention somewhere.

finally- no love for the hot toddy?

Tinkering with a hot rum punch on a cold night in Florida. Inspired by the Flaming Rum Punch Clarence tries to order in It's a Wonderful Life and the much revered Godalming's Burnt Rum Punch that Renfield attributes to Arthur Holmwood's father in Stoker's novel Dracula. I think this iteration is pretty close to what I'll be bringing out on the Thanksgiving camping trip.

Hillsborough Hot Rum Punch (single serving)

• 3-4 oz very hot weak orange pekoe and cut black tea steeped with 3 whole cloves
• 0.75 oz cinnamon demerara simple syrup
• 0.5 oz fresh lemon juice and muddled peel to extract essential oils
• 1 oz Coruba Rum
• 0.25 oz Batavia Arrack
• 0.5 oz Cognac

Combine all ingredients except tea in a heat-proof mug. Add tea, stir, drink.

Hitting the spot on a 46 degree night — something us Florida folks aren't very used to.

On 2014-11-14 19:26, mikehooker wrote:
Just made a Christmas Island per arriano's instructions and it's rich, delicious and Christmas-y! I added some red sprinkles on top to go with the green of the spent lime to give it some extra holiday cheer.

That's cool! Glad you liked it, and I liked your sprinkle addition

Couple of years ago Arriano posted the Trader Sam’s “Red Nosed Zebra” recipe. I use Meyer’s Silver instead of Bacardi 8 and I serve it in narrow bottomed dbl old fashioned’s that have a Christmas motif. Martini glasses don’t hold much. Thanks again Ari! Btw, I use fresh berries for the puree-can’t miss!

Red-Nosed Zebra, serves one

1.5 ounces Bacardi 8 rum


1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

1 ounce agave nectar

1 ounce strawberry purée

Crushed ice, 3 cranberries, 2 mint sprigs, for garnish
Add all ingredients in a Boston Shaker (except garnish), fill half full with ice, and shake vigorously for 10 seconds.
Strain into a margarita glass filled with ice. Garnish with a mound of crushed ice, cranberries, and mint sprigs to look like 2 green antlers, cranberries for eyes

[ Edited by: nui 'umi 'umi 2014-11-23 21:16 ]

On 2014-11-23 18:30, nui 'umi 'umi wrote:
Couple of years ago Arriano posted the Trader Sam’s “Red Nosed Zebra” recipe. I use Meyer’s Silver instead of Bacardi 8 and I serve it in narrow bottomed dbl old fashioned’s that have a Christmas motif. Martini glasses don’t hold much. Thanks again Ari! Btw, I use fresh berries for the puree-can’t miss!

Red-Nosed Zebra, serves one

1.5 ounces Bacardi 8 rum


1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

1 ounce agave nectar

1 ounce strawberry purée

Crushed ice, 3 cranberries, 2 mint sprigs, for garnish
Add all ingredients in a Boston Shaker (except garnish), fill half full with ice, and shake vigorously for 10 seconds.
Strain into a margarita glass filled with ice. Garnish with a mound of crushed ice, cranberries, and mint sprigs to look like 2 green antlers, cranberries for eyes .
Can’t figure out why the”#8232;” after the 2nd line. Just ignore.

[ Edited by: nui 'umi 'umi 2014-11-23 21:16 ]

On 2014-11-15 16:25, thePorpoise wrote:
seems like somewhere around here there was mention of the hot zombie from little fragrant tiare's blog.

The hot Zombie was not on my blog it was here - http://ratedrcocktails.com/2013/12/02/hottikihotzombie/

:)

Went back to Christmas Island last night and tried to get creative with it. Yeah, my carving skills could use a little help.

At any rate, we'll be visiting family for Xmas and they wanna know what ingredients they should pick up so I could make everyone holiday cocktails. Still looking for ideas outside of variants of hot buttered rum, Tom and Jerry's, and Egg Nog. I perused the "95 Chic Cocktail Recipes for Christmas" document AceExplorer sent me and there's a lot of cool looking drinks on there but very few are centered around rum. I guess it's not a popular holiday spirit but I don't know if I wanna start stocking up on Brandy, Gin, and a bunch of things I can't pronounce and will probably never use again. Anyone else have yummy rum creations they wanna share? Christmas Island and the Hot Butterscotch I mentioned on the last page are the top contenders right now.

I have our annual holiday party at the weekend, and so tonight I planned to test out the Christmas Island, as per Arriano's great recipe.

Unfortunately it was after a couple of other (failed) recipe attempts and I guess I wasn't reading too straight because after I'd poured, I realized I'd substituted Don's Spices (home mixed) instead of Don's Mix, and boy, that's a pretty good Christmassy drink too, if a little sweet! The vanilla, allspice and coconut work quite well together with Myers and lime Added a dusting of cinnamon and I think i might have found my Christmas cocktail.

On 2014-12-08 14:01, mikehooker wrote:
Anyone else have yummy rum creations they wanna share? Christmas Island and the Hot Butterscotch

mikehooker, are you going to sofla? i like mixing up a couple bottles of coquito every christmas, just like Abuela used to make.

Scaramouch, as I mentioned in the grapefruit thread, I'm not a huge fan of grapefruit so instead of Don's Mix, I am doing 1/2 oz grapefruit and 1/2 oz cinna syrup rather than a 2:1 ratio and find it to be much tastier that way. I use Coruba as my dark. And for whatever reason I find it better when I sip from the glass rather than use a straw.

thePorpoise, my family is split between Lauderdale and Jacksonville and I'll only have time to hit Jax for this trip. Won't make it down south again til April unfortunately.