Santa’s Swizzle

2022 Let’s Get Blitzen: Cocktail Advent Calendar – Day 12 – Santa’s Swizzle. A cocktail advent calendar without a touch of Tiki would be like waking up on Christmas morning to find a lump of coal in your stocking. You made the ”nice” list this year and I’m treating you to this rum swizzle.

This is a very classic Tiki cocktail made with two different styles of rum, plenty of lime, and baking spices. Swizzles are sour style drinks that must be churned with a swizzle stick. They are most often served in a tall glass such as a highball, sling, or footed pilsner (like the one I’m using here). Having originated in the Caribbean, swizzles are most often rum-based cocktails but the name refers strictly to the method of preparation, and not the ingredients.

Swizzle sticks are classically made from a twig from a quararibea turbinate – an evergreen tree grown on the southern islands of the Caribbean. These trees grow up to 6 metres tall and have forked branches which make for perfect swizzle sticks called bois lélé. The bois lélé are still available for purchase but they can be hard to get your hands on – plastic and metal varieties are more wildly accessible.

Swizzles are made-in-glass cocktails served over crushed or cracked ice. Pour your ingredients into the glass and fill the glass half to three-quarters full with crushed ice. Immerse the blades of your swizzle stick into the cocktail, hold the shaft between the palms of both hands and rotate the stick rapidly by sliding your hands back and forth against it – as though you are trying to warm your hands quickly by rubbing your palms together.

If you don’t have a swizzle stick, you can use a bar spoon in the same manner. Top with more crushed ice until it’s mounded on top of the drink. Swizzling chills, aerates, and dilutes your cocktail while frosting over the glass.

This is possibly the most fun technique for mixing drinks and originates from a food preparation technique popular in the West Indies where food such as batter would be mixed prior to cooking by spinning a stick with a paddle at the end, while moving it up and down in the container.

I hope you’ll join me on Instagram Stories tonight at 5 p.m. and get to swizzlin’.

Santa’s Swizzle

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Santa’s Swizzle

Prep Time

5 mins

Total Time

5 mins

 

A cocktail advent calendar without a touch of Tiki would be like waking up on Christmas morning to find a lump of coal in your stocking. You made the ”nice” list this year and I’m treating you to this rum swizzle.

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: Tiki

Keyword: Let’s Get Blitzen, Lime, Mount Gay Rum, Rum, Santa’s Swizzle

Servings: 1

Author: Yvonne Langen

Ingredients

• 1 oz Mount Gay Black Barrel Double Cask Blend
• 1 oz Goslings Bermuda Black Seal Rum
• 1 oz spiced demerara syrup
• ½ oz lime juice
• ¼ oz allspice dram
• 1 dash angostura bitters
• Garnish: freshly grated nutmeg
• Garnish: mint bouquet

Spiced Demerara Syrup

• 2 cups demerara sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 star anise
• 1 whole vanilla bean
• 6 whole cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks

Allspice Dram

• ½ cup allspice berries
• 2½ cups navy-strength rum
• 200 g granulated sugar

Instructions

1. Add all ingredients to a highball or footed pilsner glass. Add crushed ice until the glass is three-quarters full.
2. Use a barspoon or swizzle stick to swizzle the crushed ice with liquid ingredients.
3. Top with additional crushed ice, as needed to fill the glass.
4. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg and mint bouquet.

Spiced Demerara Syrup

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a low boil, stirring frequently.
2. Reduce heat to medium low and let simmer for about 15 minutes until syrup is slightly thickened.
3. Cool to room temperature.
4. Carefully strain the whole ingredients out of the syrup. Once cool enough to handle, store the gingerbread syrup in a swing top bottle or mason jar and keep in the fridge. Syrup will keep for about a month.

Allspice Dram

1. Heat a heavy skillet over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Toast the allspice berries until fragrant, about 1 minute, then roughly crush.
2. Combine the rum and crushed allspice berries in a quart-sized glass jar, seal the lid tightly and give it a good shake. Steep for 10 days.
3. Strain the allspice-infused rum through a fine-mesh sieve into a small saucepan and add the sugar. Heat over low, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is fully dissolved, about 15 minutes. Cool to room temperature before storing in a glass jar or bottle.