How to adjust the spice in homemade spiced rum

How to adjust the spice in a homemade spiced rum

An essence gets you a spiced rum in about five minutes, and the flavour it gives you is the flavour the maker decided on. That's the whole point of it and it's also the thing people want to change once they've made a couple of batches. Too much clove for some and not enough vanilla for others, and a fair few want it drier than it comes.

All of that is adjustable, as long as you go in the right order and you don't try to fix everything at once.

Start by leaving it alone

A freshly mixed spirit tastes sharper and more separate than it will in two days. Most of the batches people want to fix don't actually need fixing, they need 48 hours in a dark cupboard with the lid on.

Still Spirits Spiced Rum essence 50ml goes into a clean base spirit at around 40%, and the balance it lands on is meant to be tasted after it has settled rather than straight out of the jug. So taste it, write down what you think, then taste it again in two days before you change a thing.

If it's harsh rather than wrongly spiced

That's the base and not the essence. A rough neutral or a wash you cut too wide will sit underneath the spice and read as burn, and adding more flavouring only buries it. Filter the base through carbon and taste it neat before you flavour the next one. An EZ Filter setup is the usual way people do that at home.

Turning the spice up

Whole spices work far better than ground ones, because ground spice clouds the spirit and keeps giving long after you wanted it to stop. Drop what you're adding into the bottle whole and taste it every day. Fish it out the moment it's where you want it.

• A cinnamon stick for warmth. Usually 24 to 48 hours is plenty.
• A split vanilla pod for sweetness and body without adding sugar.
• Two or three cloves, and no more, because clove takes over faster than anything else on this list.
• A strip of orange peel with the white pith cut away, for lift rather than heat.

Do one at a time. If you put four things in together and the result is wrong, you've learned nothing about which one did it.

Pulling the spice back

Harder, and there are really only two options. You can dilute it with more of your base spirit, which drops the strength as well. Or you can mix the over-spiced batch into a bigger volume of plain rum-style spirit and treat it as a concentrate.

So it's worth tasting toward the target rather than overshooting and correcting, because correcting costs you a bottle either way.

Sweetness is a separate dial

A lot of what people call "not enough spice" is actually not enough sugar, because sweetness carries the spice to the front of your mouth. Try a teaspoon of sugar syrup in a single 30ml measure before you start adding cloves to the whole bottle. If that fixes it, sweeten the batch rather than spicing it.

Keeping notes so the good one is repeatable

Write the base strength, what you added and how long you left it, on a card taped to the bottle. The batch you nail is worthless if you can't make it again, and you will not remember in six months.

The licence bit, said plainly

Owning a still is legal in Australia and so is buying one from us, and that's where a lot of posts stop. Distilling spirits at home needs an excise manufacturer licence from the ATO, and sorting that out is on you before you run anything through it. Flavouring a bought base spirit with an essence is a different job again and it doesn't need a licence at all.

Shop related products

• Still Spirits Spiced Rum essence 50ml. The one this whole post is about.
• Still Spirits Gold Rum Liqueur 50ML. A sweeter rum liqueur if you want the other direction.
• Still Spirits Coconut Rum 50ML. Same base spirit, a very different finish.
• Still Spirits Liqueur Base A. Worth having if you decide sweetness is your real problem.

Did you know we keep carbon, EZ Filter gear, the Still Spirits Air Still and a good slice of the range in the shop without listing any of it online. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 and we'll tell you what's on the shelf.

Brewhilder is our homebrew adviser if you want to talk a batch through, and otherwise bring it in and we'll taste it with you.

There's more in the Still Spirits range and across the wider homebrew section.

Read next

• Still Spirits Spiced Rum Essence, how to use it
• Which rum style suits you
• What you need to make spirits at home

I like mine spicier than most people do, so take my nudges with a grain of salt and trust your own mouth.

Cheers,
Candeece

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