Traditional Allspice Dram
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Allspice Dram adds the perfect amount of spice to tiki and cold weather cocktails
Allspice dram is an essential when it comes to tiki cocktails. Just a little bit of spice really adds so much complexity to cocktails, and helps to balance the sweetness of tiki drinks. I also like using it in fall and winter cocktails. It’s an incredibly versatile cocktail ingredient. This recipe is for a traditional allspice dram, or at least as close to it without using fresh allspice berries. I also have an instant version of this recipe that can be made in 15 minutes.
You’ll need the following equipment:
Jar with a lid
Ingredients:
Overproof Rum
Water
Since I’ve already made my own falernum, I wanted to try to make allspice dram at home as well. Rob from Rob’s home bar made his own allspice dram awhile back, and I wanted to try out his recipe. It’s pretty minimal when it comes to ingredients, a cinnamon stick, overproof rum, sugar, and allspice berries. The only thing that is not minimal with this recipe, is the time it takes to make it. I did this in two parts.
The first step is to toast the allspice berries. You’ll want to toast them for about 5 minutes, or until your house smells like Christmas time.
Remove the allspice berries from the heat, and let them cool. Once they’ve cooled, I’m going to crush them in a mortar and pestle. You don’t want a find grind on this, you really just want to crush them until they break apart into fairly large pieces, this will make it much easier to strain at the end. I’m going to add the crushed allspice berries to a jar, and cover them with 1/2 a cup of overproof rum. I’m using Wray and Nephew. This needs to infuse for 2 weeks total.
The 6th day of the infusion, I added 1 small cinnamon stick that I broke into smaller pieces. I let this infuse for another week. Then I filtered out the crushed allspice berries and cinnamon. To sweeten this dram, I made a Demerara syrup using 1/3 cup of Demerara sugar mixed with 2/3 cup of water. I heated the mixture over low heat until the sugar dissolved. Once it’s cooled completely, I combined the syrup with the spiced rum.
This tastes really amazing off the bat, though a tiny bit harsh. But after some time in the bottle, the flavors will smooth out quite a bit. I will also note, that you will want to decant this after two weeks as there will be a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottle. This allspice dram tastes like the holidays all bottled up. Sweet, and toasty baking spices, like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and obviously allspice all melded together.
Use this dram in all of your favorite tiki cocktails!
Traditional Allspice Dram
Ingredients:
2 tbsp Allspice Berries- toasted
1 small Cinnamon stick
1/2 cup Wray and Nephew Overproof Rum
1/3 cup Demerara Sugar
2/3 cup water
Method
Crush Toasted allspice berries, add them to a container with a lid along with the rum. Let infuse for 6 days
Add 1 small cinnamon stick to the allspice and rum infusion. Let infuse for another 6 days, shaking the container occasionally.
Dissolve sugar in water, let cool to room temperature.
Strain rum through a rinsed coffee filter, combine with syrup. After 2 weeks, strain out sediment.
Equipment:
Jar with a lid
