Dark rum, hot water, a teaspoon of spiced compound butter that floats and slowly melts. The cocktail invented by people who lived through New England winters.
Why you are pouring this tonight
Hot buttered rum is the cocktail that should not work. Butter, on top of liquor, with hot water? In a glass? It sounds like the kind of drink a five-year-old would invent if you asked them to come up with something for a snowy Sunday. And yet. Hot dark rum with a teaspoon of brown-sugar-and-spice compound butter melted into the top is one of the great cold-weather drinks ever invented, a thing that has been keeping coastal New Englanders warm since the 1700s and could solve at least three of your current problems if you would just give it a try.
The compound butter is the trick. Soft butter creamed with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, a tiny pinch of clove, and (controversially) a splash of vanilla. Make a batch, roll it into a log in baking paper, refrigerate. A heaped teaspoon goes into the mug per drink. It melts as it sits. The butter coats your tongue, the sugar and spice merge with the rum, and the whole drink develops a depth that no amount of just-honey-and-lemon could match. The first sip is suspicious. The second is converted. The third is plotting another batch of butter.
Use a dark rum with weight. Mount Gay Black Barrel at $58 from Dan Murphy’s is the everyday. Plantation Xaymaca at $70 is the upgrade if you want the drink to taste like banana bread. Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva at $95 makes the drink dessert-adjacent in a way that some will love and some will find slightly too much. Avoid white rum entirely. White rum in a hot drink tastes like a watercolour of a rum drink.
What to pour it alongside
End of dinner, with a slice of ginger cake, or after coming inside from the cold with frozen fingers and questionable life choices. It also works as a Christmas-in-July cocktail at the second round, when the eggnog has run out and you need to keep momentum going. A small piece of dark chocolate alongside it does extraordinary things to both the chocolate and the rum. This is not a daytime drink, unless your daytime involves a fire, a book, and a refusal to engage with the rest of the world.
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Notes from the kitchen
Make the compound butter ahead. 100g soft butter, 80g soft brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, half tsp nutmeg, quarter tsp allspice, pinch of clove, half tsp vanilla extract. Beat with a fork until smooth. Roll into a log in baking paper. Refrigerate at least an hour, up to a month. One log is enough for fifteen drinks. The butter is also outstanding melted onto raisin toast, or stirred into porridge, or piped onto pancakes. Keep a log in the fridge from May to August. Future-you will thank present-you with a quiet nod.
The water should be hot, not boiling. Boiling water splits the butter into a slick on top and a watery layer underneath. Hot kettle water that has sat for ninety seconds is the right temperature. Stir gently. Some butter rim is desirable; a full butter slick on top means you went in too hot.
Two things that go wrong
Butter splits and floats in greasy clumps
Water was boiling. Let the kettle sit two minutes after boiling before you pour. The butter wants to melt and emulsify, not be flash-fried.
Drink tastes flat and sweet
Compound butter ratio is off, or the rum is too light. Bump up the spices in the next batch (more cinnamon, more nutmeg) and switch to a darker rum. The drink should taste warm-and-spicy, not warm-and-sugary.
Variations worth knowing
Apple cider buttered rum
Replace half the hot water with hot unsweetened apple cider. Add a strip of orange peel. The drink suddenly has a Vermont-in-October energy that is hard to argue with.
Rum and chai
Replace the water with a strong, freshly brewed chai (no milk). The cardamom and ginger play beautifully with the spiced butter. A small piece of crystallised ginger on top to finish.
Spiced bourbon version
Bourbon instead of rum. Same compound butter. The drink becomes shorter and sharper, more of a winter Manhattan in a mug. Wild Turkey 101 is the right bourbon for this.
Leftovers and make ahead
The compound butter is the leftover that keeps giving. Rolled in paper, refrigerated, it lasts a month. Frozen in slices, it lasts six months. Use it on raisin toast, in porridge, on pancakes, melted over hot baked apples. The drink itself is a single-serve. Make it to order, drink while warm. Do not hold a hot buttered rum on a hotplate or in the microwave. The butter splits, the spices flatten, and you have made yourself feel old in a hurry.
The recipe
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