hot buttered rum is a colonial-era drink once favored for being medicinal, warming, and chock-full of calories. It remains popular today in certain precincts owing to its richness and tastiness, particularly during winter.
Initially prescribed for its medicinal value in aiding hoarseness of voice, the drink was agreeable enough to be consumed recreationally. Recipes vary, but the ingredients are usually consistent: rum, butter, sugar, spices, and hot water. One early recipe called for “butter the size of a black walnut” and “maple sugar the size of a large hickory nut,” mixed with boiling water, rum, and “nutmeg for the ladies.”
Northwest Passage he wrote, “After a man’s had two-three drinks of hot buttered rum, he don’t shoot a catamount. All he’s got to do is walk up to him and kiss him just once, then put him in his bag, all limp.”One who was not convinced was David Embury, author of the 1948 Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. “The lump of butter is the final insult,” he wrote. “It blends with the hot rum just about as satisfactorily as warm olive oil blends with champagne.” He noted that hot buttered rum should be “permitted only in the Northwest Passage and, even there, only by highly imaginative and overenthusiastic novelists.”
Embury has a point; the butter often leaves a slick. This can be remedied to a degree by preparing a batter with butter, sugar, and spices, then using this to mix with rum and hot water.
Recipe: Blend one cup softened, salted butter with 2 cups brown sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg. Store in refrigerator until needed. In mug, add one teaspoon of batter and 60 ml dark rum; fill with hot water. Stir and serve.
Roberts, Kenneth. Northwest Passage. New York: Doubleday Doran, 1937.
By: Wayne Curtis