Hot buttered rum

Hot buttered rum is a mixed drink made with rum, butter, hot water or cider, a sweetener, and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. It’s most popular during fall and winter, especially around the holidays. In the U.S., the drink goes back to colonial times, when households often had their own recipes and people thought rum was healthy and strengthened the body.

In the mid-19th century, bartender Jerry Thomas included two hot rum recipes in his book *How to Mix Drinks*. One, called hot spiced rum, uses sugar, Jamaica rum, cloves, allspice, butter, and hot water. The other, simply hot rum, is the same but skips the spices, with nutmeg grated on top instead. Some modern versions swap or add vanilla ice cream for extra creaminess, while others use organic coconut oil instead of butter, believing it to be healthier.

Hot buttered rum saw a revival in the 1940s as a tiki drink, often served in a ceramic skull mug or turned into coffee grog. Trader Vic’s *Bartender’s Guide* offered a batter recipe with brown sugar, butter, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. He warned that the usual version was weak, with butter floating on top, and urged using his batter for better drinks. That batter also went into other warm cocktails he created, like the Northwest Passage and hot buttered rum cow. Around 1950, two other tiki versions appeared: one from the Volcano House Hotel in Hawaii, which unusually included Maraschino liqueur, and another from a Chicago restaurant called Pub and Prow. While overproof rums like Bacardi 151 or Stroh 160 are sometimes used, early recipes didn’t call for setting the drink on fire, though that’s now done occasionally, especially for coffee grog.

In popular culture, Kenneth Roberts’ 1937 novel *Northwest Passage* featured the drink, which some credit for its 1940s comeback. A character says, “After a man’s had two—three drinks of hot buttered rum, he don’t shoot a catamount.” In the film *White Christmas*, Bing Crosby’s character lists “hot buttered rum, light on the butter” while singing “Snow.” Some people celebrate January 17 as Hot Buttered Rum Day.