Spiced rum

[850stealth]

I have been looking for a good spiced rum recipe to try if anyone can point me in the right direction. I really do not like captain morgan spiced, way to sweet, Didnt like kraken either. I did try some at an airport on the way home from work last month and it was great, not to sweet and had a maple/vanilla taste to it, i took a pic of the bottle but then lost my phone. Another question i had was about the oaking of it, i have alot of 7'' x 3/4 x 3/4 medium toasted oak sticks. Should i add some of them while i add spices and maybe maple syrup or does this work better at different times. Ive never tried to spice rum because i never liked it until i tried this brand. Wish i still had the pic

[NZChris]

Invent it. Put in the botanicals you recognised and liked, don't put any in that you recognised but don't like.

[850stealth]

I plan on trying some maple syrup, some vanilla (not sure on extract or bean), and really at a loss on what else to use, the stuff i tried was not real sweet like others ive tried. Does the oak go in at the same time as the other stuff? Any negatives to adding it all together?? Ive read about people using raisins and orange peel, not sure of the flavor that stuff gives, i dont like raisins that much, but maybe they give a different flavor in rum???

[Grappa-Gringo]

The last time I made it I used the following: vanilla beans split in half and the insides scraped out and used in the mix,
star anice, cracked..one or two should be good,
Cinnamon stick-- one or two depending on your taste
1/2teaspoon brown sugar or less, again taste is up to yu
Dried orange skin---no pith

Start with that.... trial and error my friend...

[850stealth]

Also i may add a half a cinnamon stick to a gallon as well, also considered adding about a liter of maple syrup to the boiler on a spirit run, think any of the flavor would carry over???

[NZChris]

If I want to try something like this, I take a small portion of new make, steep the botanical I want to try out for a couple of days, then distill it in a small gin still to make an essence. That gives me an essence that can be blended with already aged on oak rum, or whatever else I'm experimenting with.

The advantages are that it can be trialed as small samples then blended to taste and that I don't have to wait a couple of years to find out I don't like a whole, large, batch and need to tweak the recipe for next time.