Homemade Homemade Spiced Rum (Babyak) Recipe

From correspondent Brian Babyak:

This rum is delicious straight or mixed into your favorite rum cocktail. It may be unorthodox to add citrus skins and spices into the sugar mixture, but I found the flavor fascinating. Fast and easy, this can be served immediately.

• 2 cups medium gold rum (Bacardi Gold®)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup filtered water
• 1/3 or less skin of medium orange, white pith removed
• 1/4 or less skin of lemon, white pith removed
• Small pinch of nutmeg
• Smaller pinch of cinnamon
• 2 cloves

Add 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water to pan with orange skin, lemon skin, nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. While stirring, heat until sugar dissolves and a gentle boil is reached. Remove from heat and stir to blend flavors, let cool a few minutes. Add vanilla to rum. Remove skins and clove from sugar syrup and add most (or all) of the syrup to the rum mixture. Shake to stir and filter through a coffee filter into a clean bottle to remove spice sediment.

Tip: I don't use all of the sugar mixture, so I leave a few tablespoons out of the total made. Taste and adjust to the sweetness level you prefer. Cut the skin from the fruit and use as strips - if you grate into zest, the liquer will be cloudy.