Looking for a cozy, crowd-pleasing, hot buttery drink to enjoy during the fall, winter, and holiday season? Selena shares her classic hot buttered rum recipe. (And, to make vegan hot buttered rum that’s super-tasty as well, she tells the substitutions to use instead of butter and honey.)
Vegan Hot Buttered Rum Recipe Secrets
You can make this yummy rich warm cocktail vegan with two substitutions:
- Instead of butter, use Earth Balance
- Instead of honey, increase the amount of brown sugar
Use half a cup of Earth Balance for this recipe. And instead of honey, you simply add a quarter of a cup of additional brown sugar or maple syrup.
With these two substitutions, your hot buttered rum will be completely vegan.
Classic Hot Buttered Rum Recipe
This recipe will make about 8-10 cocktails.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 stick butter (OR one half-cup Earth Balance for the vegan version)
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup honey (OR 1/4 cup maple syrup or additional brown sugar for the vegan version)
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 8-10 ounces rum
DIRECTIONS:
- Take a cold stick of butter (or Earth Balance, if you’re making the vegan version), chop it up, and put it into the food processor. (If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a hand mixer, or a stand mixer, or a blender. I find the food processor is easier, because it’s mostly designed to chop.)
2. To the blender or food processor, pour in two-thirds of a cup of brown sugar and a quarter cup of honey. (And if you’re making the vegan version, you don’t use the honey — instead, you simply add an additional quarter cup more of brown sugar.)
3. Add in spices nutmeg, cloves, and ground cinnamon.
4. Mix it together in your food processor or blender.
5. When thoroughly mixed, move your “batter” (aka butter, sugar, and spices mixture) to a refrigerator- or freezer-safe container and chill for an hour or more. If you’re using honey, here’s a trick: Use Pam to coat your container, and it will be a lot a lot easier to get it out. (Honey apparently sticks to the edges, otherwise after it’s chilled.)
6. To make a warm hot buttered cozy cocktail, add a shot of rum (1-oz) to your favorite mug. Add one tablespoon of the sugar-butter batter mixture.
And pour hot water on top and mix with a spoon until butter completely dissolves. Garnish with cinnamon stick. And Voila! Enjoy your hot buttered rum.
How to Make a Virgin/Non-Alcoholic Hot Buttered Americano
For a warm, tasty, rich morning pick-me-up, we’re gonna make another version with a shot of espresso, instead of the rum. And we’re gonna mix it up with one tablespoon of our butter-sugar mixture, and hot water to create one of the non-alcoholic versions: A hot buttered Americano.
What to Do With the Extra Butter-Sugar Batter
If you don’t make eight drinks tonight, you can save all the extra butter-sugar batter, and use it for a later date in your refrigerator or freezer.
History of Hot Buttered Rum
The hot buttered rum is from the time of the American Revolution. Rum was the most popular drink in all of Revolutionary wartime America, because water was considered bad at that time with all the dysentery and all this stuff. It probably was bad. But rum was not. So, they considered rum to be something that was super-healthy for them. And women, men, and children would all drink rum. They said that the average American would drink about a half a pint of hard alcohol every day. So, that is quite a lot, in my opinion!
January 17th is National Hot Buttered Rum Day. (So, be sure to drink some on January 17th.)
ABOUT SELENA: Selena Mooney is co-founder of Create Social Club, along with Jess Barron.
Check out the rest of the videos from the Create Social Club Friendsgiving Fall Party.