Skip The Bourbon And Try These Spirits In Your Pumpkin Cocktails

When the days get shorter and the nights get colder, it's time to serve cocktails with a splash of the warm fuzzies. Darker spirits add just the right touch of spice to knock the chill from your empty hands. It's also time for the comforting taste and pretty orange hue of pumpkin. Bourbon always comes to mind as the colder months roll around, but it's not the only spirit in the (haunted) house. Both brandy and dark rum impart perfect seasonal flavors like caramel and brown sugar to elevate those cozy, spooky, or thankful pumpkin vibes.

Dark rum also features sweet vanilla-tinged notes that work especially well with pumpkin-adjacent flavors, like the ones in this gingered pumpkin and rum cocktail recipe. Its unique combination of pumpkin butter, cinnamon syrup, and muddled ginger blends smoothly with aged rum that's appreciated for its mature flavor and mahogany color.

Brandies, with their fruity, floral notes, also go hand in hand with pumpkin. These spirits are distilled from fruits like apple, peach, and pear. Cognac is a brandy specifically made with white grapes from the Cognac region of France. It's the main ingredient in this classic sidecar cocktail recipe just begging to be modified into a pumpkin-spiced version. With the addition of this spiced simple syrup and yummy pumpkin butter (which is the secret to effortless, homemade pumpkin-spiced lattes), the pumpkin sidecar is now a thing; you're welcome.

It may sound oversimplified, but adding dark rum or cognac to your pumpkin-spiced lattes is a fantastic idea. These amped-up coffee drinks are the fun uncle to the ever-popular espresso martini. You could even tinker with these frozen pumpkin espresso martinis. Replace half the vodka with dark rum or cognac and serve it as a slushy. Since you'll likely be sharing these libations with family, friends, and all the other partygoers on your seasonal invite lists, make hosting your next party easier than ever by batching your cocktails. This means you'll be preparing the ingredients for your new favorite fall cocktails in large quantities. Even if you're not throwing a party, it's nice to have a pre-mixed cocktail at the ready.

When it comes to converting your drink recipes to work on a larger scale, ratios are your friend. Scaling spices that are pungent and concentrated with flavor, like vanilla and cinnamon, should be scaled into your batch by 1½, not double. Taste it and tread lightly until you get the batch just the way you like it. Another mindful tip is the ice factor. If you're serving the cocktail over ice, consider how much the ice will eventually dilute the batch, and adjust the recipe accordingly.