I have a party (well actually a fierce Mai Tai competition) to attend in a couple days and no good guest shows up empty handed. So I’m making Spiced Rummy Bears!!
It’s easy! My local grocery store didn’t have the big bags of Gummi Bears, so I picked up three of the 5oz bags. In previous trials I’ve found that the Haribo bears hold up best without losing their shape. I decided I wanted this year’s bears to be a bit spicy, so they’ve been soaking in two parts Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum and 1 part King’s Ginger Liqueur. I just put the bears in a stainless steel bowl, poured in enough of the booze combo to cover them and gave them a good stir. After 24 hours in a covered bowl in the fridge, I found that most of the bears had banded together and became a big slab of bears that were also sticking to the bowl. This has never happened to me. I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t stir them often enough, or if the fridge is maybe too cold. Who knows!
Anyway, I had to surgically separate the conjoined bears and pour in more liquid since they had absorbed a healthy amount of The Sailor and The King in their first day. I did find one that had escaped the bearblob and I’d held one out from the bowl to compare pre- and post-soaking size, just for S&G. You can see the result in the picture below. The one on the left has been soaking in booze for 24 hours, and looks about as glazed as I would if I had done the same. Apparently booze does a Gummi good because, as you can see, the boozy bear is about 20% larger than the teetotaler.
The boozy bears (now swimming along as individuals) have gone back into the fridge for another night of soaking, and I decided to add some Meukow Vanilla Cognac to the mix to soften the bite of the ginger liqueur. They needed more liquid to cover them anyway. I’ll update this post once we have a final result, but right now I need to go give those bad boys a stir!
Update: After another day in the liquid, the bears gained some girth, but no more length. Although they were a bit strong upon first approach, after a few cocktails everyone seemed to like them a whole lot more! Lesson learned: a couple drinks make everything better!
Here are the final side-by-side growth results: left=no booze bath, center=1 day in the booze, right=2 days in the booze. I think either the Ginger Liqueur or the Vanilla Cognac compromised the integrity of the bears’ surface layer. They seemed pretty beat up and there were gelatinous bits left in the liquid after straining the bears. I don’t think that was from the separation operation after the first day. Yet another weird thing that happened with this batch. At least they were well received at the party!
Cheers to yummy rummy bears!