Boos and Booze: The Shining and Hot Buttered (red) Rum

The Overlook – A Hot Buttered (Red) Rum

From Jessica: “Creating this recipe was a fun journey. I was just talking about apple cider doughnuts and had ciders on my mind. With King’s books typically set in Maine, New England being cider country, and it being cider season, it seemed like an obvious choice.

I couldn’t get the image of the iconic carpet pattern from the film The Shining out of my head and wanted to try and emulate those colors in this cocktail.

This recipe is intended to be a batch, but since gatherings are discouraged, this can be stored for at least a month. There are three elements to this drink, a cider, a batter, and a sugar rim.”

Cider:

• 6 cups of unfiltered apple cider
• 1/2 tsp whole cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3 cinnamon sticks

‘Batter‘:

• 2 cups brown sugar
• 3/4 cup butter
• -optional-
• 3 tsp apple pie spice (or equivalent mix of cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp honey

Sugar Rim:

Equal parts:

• brown sugar
• white sugar
• apple pie spice

Additional Ingredients:

• Rum (Users choice. I recommend a dark rum such as Gosling’s, Trader Vic’s or a nice aged rum like Appleton Estate)
• Cranberry juice

For the batter, mixed the ingredients into a smooth and creamy paste. It can be stored and refrigerated for up to four months.

For the cider, bring the ingredients to a slow boil and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Strain off the solids and allow to cool slightly until it’s cool enough to drink. This is important because if it’s too warm, the alcohol will cook off.

To rim a glass, grab two plates.

In one, pour just enough honey to go along the rim of the glass (not too much, or it will drip down the glass).

In the other, mix the sugars and the apple pie spice.

Lightly press the rim of the glass into the honey, pick it up and allow the excess to drip off.

Lastly, press the rim of the glass on the sugared plate and rotate the glass to coat.

Now let’s drink!

Take your rimmed glass and place a spoonful of the batter in the bottom.

Add 1.5oz – 2oz of rum in the bottom of your glass

Carefully pour some nice, hot cider into your glass and stir to dissolve the batter.

For added color and a light addition of flavor, add a spoonful or two of cranberry juice. Cheers!

For the record, this writer put Jessica’s recipe to good use and mixed up my own Overlook cocktail. It was delicious, and I will definitely be making it again!

Will you be reading or re-reading The Shining while sipping  Jessica’s custom cocktail? Let us know what you think in the comments section.