Falernum

the Barbadian cane syrup: rum infused with toasted almond, clove, and a great deal of lime zest, then sweetened heavily into a thick spiced cordial that carries half the rum drinks of the Caribbean

Origin: Barbados

From the journey of Sugar Cane.

Barbados turned itself into a sugar island in a single generation after 1640, and everything the island now puts in a glass descends from that. Rum was the first by-product, distilled from the molasses that the boiling house threw off, and the word itself appears first in Barbadian documents of the sixteen-fifties. Falernum is the second and subtler one: a heavily sweetened cane syrup infused with lime zest, toasted almonds, and clove, sometimes with ginger and allspice, which is the island's contribution to the world's bars and the ingredient that makes a great many Caribbean and tiki drinks work. Its name is a piece of eighteenth-century whimsy borrowed from Falernian, the most celebrated wine of ancient Rome, and Barbadian lore attaches to it the usual apocryphal story of a planter asked what was in it and replying, in dialect, that you have to learn 'em. It exists in two forms: the alcoholic version, which is essentially a rum liqueur and keeps for months, and a non-alcoholic syrup used in the same way. What it does in a drink is supply sweetness, spice, and citrus oil in a single measure, and once it is in the house one understands why the rum shops of Bridgetown keep a bottle behind every counter.

Ingredients

Infusion

  • 80 g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
  • 30 whole cloves
  • 8 whole limes, zest pared in wide strips with no white pith
  • 20 g fresh ginger, thinly sliced (optional)
  • 250 ml overproof white rum (Barbadian for preference)

Syrup

  • 400 g demerara or raw cane sugar
  • 250 ml water

To Finish

  • 100 ml fresh lime juice, from the zested limes
  • 2 drop almond extract (optional, if the almonds are mild)

Method

  1. Toast the chopped almonds in a dry pan over a medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes, shaking often, until golden and fragrant. Tip out and cool completely.
  2. Put the toasted almonds, cloves, lime zest, and ginger if using into a clean jar, pour over the rum, seal, and leave at room temperature for 24 hours, shaking occasionally.
  3. Strain the infusion through muslin into a jug, pressing the solids gently to extract the liquid, and set aside. Discard the solids.
  4. Warm the sugar and water together in a pan, stirring, until completely dissolved, then simmer for 3 minutes to a light syrup. Take off the heat and cool to room temperature.
  5. Combine the cooled syrup, the strained rum infusion, the lime juice, and the almond extract if using. Bottle, and rest for at least a day before using. Refrigerate.

Notes

For a non-alcoholic falernum, infuse the almonds, cloves, and zest in 250 ml of hot water for an hour instead of in rum, strain, and proceed; it keeps only two weeks refrigerated. The balance of clove to lime is the thing most worth adjusting to taste, and thirty cloves is assertive: start at twenty if you are cautious, since clove is very difficult to take back out. Use it wherever a drink wants sweetness and spice at once. It is essential to the Corn 'n' Oil, the Barbadian national drink of blackstrap rum, falernum, and a squeeze of lime; it is the backbone of the Zombie, the Test Pilot, and much of the tiki repertoire; and a spoonful in a rum punch in place of some of the sugar transforms it. It is also very good over ice cream, over grilled pineapple, and stirred into soda water on its own.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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