Hot Spiced Rum with Butter, from 1862
Reader ratingsA teaspoon of sugar, a wine-glass of Jamaica rum, allspice and cloves, and a piece of butter the size of half a chestnut, filled up with hot water: Jerry Thomas’s hot spiced rum of 1862.
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink, about 4 1/2 fl oz
- Prep
- Total
Let the drink stand for a minute so the spices start to flavor it.
Hot spiced rum in a small thick glass, with butter melting on top and whole allspice and cloves.
The story behind the recipe
Jerry Thomas’s hot spiced rum is an early form of what is now called hot buttered rum: a small glass of Jamaica rum with sugar, allspice and cloves, “1 piece of butter as large as half of a chestnut,” and hot water to fill. It is No. 207 in his How to Mix Drinks of 1862, and the next entry, plain Hot Rum, is “made the same as the hot spiced rum, omitting the spices, and grating a little nutmeg on top.” Butter goes into both.
A bar drink in five lines
Thomas gives it the way he gives most of his hot drinks, as a list with no method: sugar, rum, spice, butter, then “Fill tumbler with hot water.” He names the small bar glass, the one he uses for his toddies, so this was a short, strong drink, not a mugful. The spices are named only as “mixed spices, (allspice and cloves),” a teaspoon of them, and he doesn’t say whether they are whole or ground.
On the same page, his Stone Fence fills a glass of bourbon with sweet cider, and that cider is the base of our Alcohol-Free Hot Buttered Cider, the version of this drink without the rum.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
We use whole allspice and cloves, half a teaspoon of each. Whole spices keep the drink clear; ground ones would cloud it. The butter melts into a thin gold layer on top; stir before each sip. With 2 fluid ounces of rum at 40% in about 4 1/2 fl oz of drink, it is about 18% alcohol.
Thomas made his toddies the same way, with spirit, sugar and boiling water, as in The Hot Toddy as Jerry Thomas Made It. The man and his book are in The Bartenders Who Wrote Down the Classic Cocktails.
207. Hot Spiced Rum.
(Use small bar glass.)
1 teaspoonful of sugar. 1 wine-glass of Jamaica rum. 1 teaspoonful of mixed spices, (allspice and cloves.) 1 piece of butter as large as half of a chestnut. Fill tumbler with hot water.
Recipe makes: 1 drink, about 4 1/2 fl oz
Ingredients
For 1 drink, about 4 1/2 fl oz. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 drink, about 4 1/2 fl oz.
- Sugar1 tsp
- Jamaica rum2 fl oz
- Whole allspice1/2 tsp
- Whole cloves1/2 tsp
- Butter1 tsp
- Hot water2 fl oz
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 fl oz Jamaica rum
- 1/2 tsp whole allspice
- 1/2 tsp whole cloves
- 1 tsp butter
- 2 fl oz hot water
Equipment
Kettle
Small heatproof cups or glasses
Bar spoon
Instructions
Warm a small heatproof glass with hot water and tip it out.
Put the sugar, whole allspice and whole cloves in the glass and pour in the Jamaica rum.
Add the butter, then fill the glass with the hot water and stir until the sugar dissolves and the butter melts.
Let it stand for a minute, stir again and serve. Lift out the spices with a spoon, or sip around them.
Nutrition
180calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink, about 4 1/2 fl oz
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 80-proof rum, granulated sugar and butter.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is one drink. Make each glass on its own so the water stays hot.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: Thomas gives “mixed spices” by the teaspoon without saying whole or ground; using them whole and half a teaspoon of each is ours. A piece of butter “as large as half of a chestnut” is taken as about 1 teaspoon. The wine-glass of rum is 2 fl oz, William Kitchiner’s measure of 1822. Thomas gives no size for the small bar glass; 2 fl oz of hot water is ours. Warming the glass and letting the drink stand are ours too.
For his Hot Rum, leave out the allspice and cloves and grate a little nutmeg on top.
Strength: 0.8 fl oz of alcohol in about 4 1/2 fl oz, so about 18%, or about one and a third US standard drinks.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Jerry Thomas, How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon-Vivant’s Companion (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862), No. 207, “Hot Spiced Rum”, and No. 208, “Hot Rum”, p. 80
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Hot Drinks
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1860s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Christmas
- Season
- Winter