Slow Cooker Hot Buttered Rum for a Crowd

Hot buttered rum sounds like a restaurant drink and is actually one of the cheapest ways to serve sixteen people something memorable. The whole thing rests on a batter of butter creamed with brown sugar and warm spices, made once and portioned out. A quarter cup of batter, hot water, and an ounce and a half of rum is the entire drink.

Making the batter ahead is the real trick, and it is what turns this from a fussy project into a ten-minute job on the night. It freezes well for three months. Scoop it into an ice cube tray, freeze, then bag the cubes: each cube is roughly one serving, so you can make a single mug in February without dragging out the mixer.

The softened vanilla ice cream is not a gimmick. It is the traditional addition in old Pacific Northwest versions of this drink, and what it does is emulsify. It keeps the butter suspended in the liquid instead of separating into an oil slick on top. If you skip it, the drink still works, but stir each mug before it goes out.

Slow Cooker Hot Buttered Rum for a Crowd

A jar of spiced butter batter whisked into hot water and dark rum — sixteen servings from one slow cooker, and the batter keeps in the freezer for months.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Course Drinks

Cuisine American

Servings 16 drinks

Ingredients

  

• 1 cup unsalted butter softened, 2 sticks
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream softened
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 10 cups water
• 3 cups dark rum or spiced rum
• 16 cinnamon sticks for stirring
• 1 pinch fresh nutmeg grated over each mug

Instructions

 

• Beat the softened butter, brown sugar, and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes with a hand mixer or 5 by hand.
• Beat in the softened ice cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, salt, and vanilla until the batter is smooth and holds together like a thick frosting.
• Scrape the batter into the slow cooker. If you are making it ahead, refrigerate it for up to 2 weeks or freeze it in an ice cube tray for up to 3 months.
• Pour the hot water over the batter and whisk until the batter has fully dissolved. Whisking now, while the liquid is hot and the batter soft, prevents lumps later.
• Cover and cook on LOW for 1 hour, whisking once at the halfway mark to keep the butter in suspension.
• Turn the cooker to WARM and stir in the rum. Add it off the heat so the alcohol stays in the mug rather than in the air.
• Whisk again right before the first pour, and give it a stir every half hour through the evening.
• Ladle into heatproof mugs, add a cinnamon stick to each, and grate fresh nutmeg over the top.

Notes

Store-brand butter is the right call here — it is creamed with a cup of brown sugar and four spices, and no one has ever identified the brand in a hot drink.

A mid-shelf dark rum is plenty. Spiced rum works and lets you cut the cinnamon in the batter by half.

Make a double batch of batter and freeze half. It is the same fifteen minutes of work and it gives you a drink on demand all winter.

The batter is not only for rum. A cube stirred into hot cider, hot coffee, or plain hot milk makes all three better, and a spoonful melted over baked sweet potatoes or roasted squash is excellent.

If the drink separates, it was not whisked enough. Whisk hard right in the cooker; it will come back together.

Make it alcohol-free: ladle the buttered base into mugs before adding any rum, and top with a splash of hot apple cider. Better still for a mixed crowd, leave the rum out of the pot entirely and set the bottle beside it so each mug gets 1 1/2 ounces to order.

Serving note: 3 cups of rum across 16 servings is 1 1/2 ounces each, one standard drink.

Keyword big-batch cocktail, holiday drink, hot buttered rum, slow cooker