3 Allspice Cocktails For The Holidays

The time for holiday baking has arrived! There are many commonly used spices around the holidays like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, star anise, cloves, and of course, allspice.

This tree hails tropical regions in Jamaica and the Americas and makes small berries that have a flavor reminiscent of cloves. Allspice is used in everything from Jamaican jerk seasoning to gingerbread cookies to sausages and cocktails!.

We learn from Amy Stewart (see the first recipe below) that allspice trees were almost completely wiped out during the Victorian era: the trees were cut down for their wood as well as spices. “It was all the rage to manufacture umbrellas and walking sticks from the pale, aromatic sticks because they resisted bending or cracking.” Luckily, Jamaica enacted a ban that saved these spice-producing saplings in 1882.

You can use allspice in a cocktail by creating an infusion, simmering a syrup, adding directly to a hot beverage, or using a pimento/allspice dram for a holiday twist to your favorite cocktail.

The Bay Rum

From one our favorites, Amy Stewart’s The Drunken Botanist.

In your cocktail shaker, add:

1 1/2 oz dark rum

1/2 oz St Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram (or other pimento dram)

1/2 oz Velvet Falernum

1 dash Ango bitters

Fresh juice of 1x orange segment (or other citurs segment)

Shake with ice and strain to ice filled rocks glass.

Lion’s Tail

Allspice Dram + Bourbon, this cocktail is perfect for a whiskey sour lover who’s ready to switch it up.

In your shaker, add:

2 oz Bourbon

1/2 oz allspice dram

1/2 oz lime juice

1 tsp simply syrup

2 dashes Ango bitters

Shake with ice and double strain to a coupe glass.

Garnish with an orange twist.

Rum Old Fashioned

Via liquor.com, this cocktail serves up an Old Fashioned with a twist.

In your mixing glass, add:

2 oz dark rum

1 tsp allspice dram

1 tsp demerara syrup

2 dashes Ango

2 dashes Orange Bitters

Stir with ice and strain over large ice cube in rocks glass.

Garnish with an orange twist.

Sources:

Stewart, Amy. The Drunken Botanist. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013.