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A Mixture for Improving Rum

A mixture of prunes, honey, gelatin, and stout infused in rum to improve its flavor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Spirit and honey work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 79 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells sweet. The science ↓

A Mixture for Improving Rum

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Break the kernels of each prune with a hammer.

  2. Place the prunes in a jar with the plain spirit or rum.

  3. Shake well and let it stand for 2 to 3 weeks, shaking daily.

Finish and rest

  1. Add the clarified honey and then the stout.

  2. Soak the gelatin in 1 quart of stout, dissolve it over heat, and add to the jar while mixing well.

  3. Let it stand for 1 to 2 hours before adding to weak rum at a ratio of 1 pint per gallon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Spirit + honeytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (sweet).

  2. Honey + capsicumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,106 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Spirit + capsicumtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Contribute fruit flavour and body, and their cracked kernels add a bitter almond note to the infusion.
Plain spirit or rum
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the prunes and kernels.
Guinness's extra stout
Adds dark malt flavour, colour and some body to the blend.
Gelatine
Adds body and a smooth, slightly thick mouthfeel to the liquid.
Clarified honey
Adds sweetness and a smooth, rounded texture.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine. Gelatine must be fully soaked and dissolved with gentle heat before it goes into the jar. If it is not fully dissolved, it can form lumps or fail to blend evenly, leaving the liquid cloudy or uneven in body.

Swap the capsicum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, honey):

  1. Capsicumthe original
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Beetrootfits less well
  4. Arrowrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, honey. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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