Well it sure as hell seems like a ski resort here on the East Coast this week — men who would prefer to be in a hurry prodding a pole in your toe, those less so still warming themselves with something equally pokey, too many people taking photographs, slow transportation. Which, along with the fact that my mother left three extra sticks of unsalted butter in my fridge from pre-Christmas dinner, is why I got home from a day spent (unfortunately) outside in Snowpocalypse and went straight for the hot-buttered rum.
HBR, as they call it at Duchin Lounge in Sun Valley, Idaho, where they've been making the stuff at the continent's oldest resort since Lord knows when, is that rare drink capable of placing you at once homeward-, slope-, and remedy-bound. It's also one of the only cocktails (if you can call it that) that's actually better if you don't make it the David Wondrich way. Which, of course, involves pyrotechnics. Now, the butter may be "there only to lubricate your mustache," as David says, but it also somehow kills the sniffles. Or maybe that's just the strong rum and the not-so-much water.
Anyway, don't make it with something as strong as, like, Bacardi 151 — unless you consider yourself as skilled a bartender as the ones who do make it with that on the fantastic new hot-drink menu at New York's Painkiller. And don't make it with something as light as, say, Equal — unless you're Helen Gurley Brown. But you can make hot-buttered rum with anything (I had some Haitian Rhum Barbancourt hanging around, but Glass No. 2 was just fine with Sailor Jerry's — though Myers or anything dark is good), as long as you also make it with cider. Like this:
On medium-to-high heat, warm 4 oz (fresh, not-from concentrate) apple cider on the stove. Find a (big) mug, pour in 1 tsp sugar in the raw (two packets of that brown stuff from Starbucks is fine). Pour in enough hot cider to dissolve the sugar, then add 2 oz rum (then add some more). Use the teaspoon for a (small) chunk of butter, then add the rest of the cider (slowly). Add nutmeg and/or impromptu snowball fight as you see fit. It's okay to throw snowballs at the jackass skiing down Broadway. Repeat.
RECIPES: The Best Winter Cocktails and Whiskey Drinks >>
