Colonial Rum Flip

[CorvallisCracker]

For six years running my wife and I have held a Pirate Theme Halloween party. Last year's was the first in Oregon, and it was a mite chilly, so we moved it forward this year. It also gave us an extra day for cleanup, as Confused Italian Explorer Day is a holiday for me.

As part of this year's festivities I decided to whip up some colonial style Rum Flip. I'd read about this in Wayne Curtis' book and a Bottle of Rum. He gives a recipe for recreating this drink:

"Mix one cup beer (a stout like Guinness works best), two tablespoons of molasses, and one ounce Jamaican-style rum into a mug or tankard. Heat loggerhead to red hot in an open fire (a fireplace poker knocked clean of ashed will do), then thrust into drink. Keep loggerhead in place until foaming and sputtering ceases.

Although I'd recorded the proportions correctly, for some reason I didn't record the use of stout, so instead picked up a 12-pack of Deschutes "Black Butte" Porter. Also to save a little time I used Cruzan Blackstrap rum, which already has plenty of molasses in it.

I also wanted to prepare more than one at a time, so used an old iron kettle. My "loggerhead" was a short steel prybar, with the grease and grime removed (well, mostly).

It turned out pretty well, except that although it foamed plenty, the single "loggerhead" didn't get it hot enough. Most people liked it though, so next year I'll do it again, this time with stout and with multiple loggerheads.

Pics below.

(yes, I'm wearing an oven mitt. One of my guests commented, "I don't think a real pirate would use an oven mitt." to which I replied, "That's why so many pirates ended up with hooks.")