Hot Buttered Rum

[cherrycherry]

Hot buttered rum with a touch of molasses, lightly spiced and swirled with a touch of cream.

Oh WOW. This is incredible and in no way as boozy as I was expecting it to be. I mean, there is booze there but it's tempered perfectly by the cream and molasses and (very subtle) spice. The butteriness is also there and I might be wrong here, but I'm almost sure there's a note in this blend that might also be in Mother Shub's Pumpkin Pecan Treacle Tarts and I am guessing it's the treacle note. It has a sweet, nutty edge to it that is totally delicious. All of these notes marry perfectly and it has an evocative feel to it - even upon the first sniff I was thinking 'Christmas!'

Absolutely divine!

[miss_rynn]

Super quick review!

This smells to me like a hot slice of fresh baked honey-oat bread spread with fresh melty butter. It's not exactly foody or boozey on me, but very warm and cozy. It's the scent of sitting bundled up on the couch infront of the fire with a hot cup of something spiked with rum.

[Jeni Mullen]

I put this on this morning without thinking to test it properly. After all, it's a foody scent! I loooove drinking hot buttered rum!

 

Cream always goes rancid on my skin but I figured that it was just a touch and rum is one of my best friends so why worry? I was in my car when the sourness started. My train ride up to NYC was spent with my scarf on tight and my gloves kept on.

 

I'm a foodie, I love Eat Me and Feeding the Dead and Captain Lilith and Halfling and Drink me and if it's bakery-esque I'll love it. Unfortunately, even the touch of cream in this blend had me gagging with its intense throw.

 

I did manage to tame it once I washed as much of it as I could off in the office with Gingerbread Snakes. Still. This stuff did scary stuff to me.

[AmyAngel]

My lab order JUST arrived, and this bottle is for my co-worker's daughter, who just two days before the Yule update went live was talking about how much she likes hot buttered rum, and she wished there was a perfume that smelled like it. This is a surprise Christmas gift for her, but I had to try a tiny dab before handing it over to her mom!

 

I thought this would be pretty nasty on me, as I've had rum blends go bad in the past, but this is actually really nice! I've not actually had hot buttered rum, but everyone in the office who has smelled it agrees that's just what it smells like. It's warm and nutty and comforting, just a little sweet, with just a touch of booziness. I can understand the honey-oat bread reference, it does kind of make me think of a dark sweet-ish bread with honey butter spread on it, especially as it dries more. It's not really changing too much as I wear it, though it seems to have faded a bit over the past hour. It does have a bit of throw, even though I just put on a teeny drop.

 

I don't think I'd wear this enough to order a bottle, but it is very nice and I'm glad I got to try it. I might try to track down a decant at some point.

[lady_pandora]

Starts out smelling exactly like the name made me think it would; while I've never actually had hot buttered rum, it did remind me of what Harry Potter's Butterbeer smelled like in my head when I was reading the books. It dries down to being buttery, syrupy, toasted nuts. Think the filling of baklava more than any alcoholic drink.

 

When I get really close, I get some of the burnt-cookies note my skin often gets from foody blends. I haven't pinned it down, but think it's probably related to a butter or cream accord. It's generally isn't a dealbreaker, but I kind of wish it weren't there. It does fade out though.

 

But now I definitely want to try hot buttered rum, the drink. If there's booze that tastes anything like baklava, it should be in my pie hole immediately.

Edited January 5, 2015 by lady_pandora

[zankoku_zen]

Melty buttery, hint of rum, toasted nuts. It's foodie, nutty and buttery. Good throw, good wear length.

 

This makes me slightly nauseous.

[sariasister]

In the imp, it smells just like hot buttered rum. I have liked the other boozy scents I've tried (Captain lilith, Grog), but on the skin, the rum disappears and it almost smells like popcorn... not like movie popcorn, but maybe caramel corn? It's sweet and not unpleasant, but I definitely don't need more than an imp.

 

On me, it lasts quite a while and has above-average throw.

[brilliantcat]

I was hoping this would be the perfume equivalent of the Dew Drop Inn atmo as I absolutely adore it, and it does have a similar scent as a base but I get spices and some nuttiness that overpower it. As it dries down, even that creamy rum base disappears and this ends up smelling like spiced sour nuts, unfortunately.

[Magycmyste]

In the imp: Buttery sweetness with a touch of booze.

 

Wet on skin: Nuts. With a little sweetness and spice, but nuts. Ok, this is happening far too often in perfumes that have no nut notes in them, so obviously, my skin chemistry is doing something with something. It's not bad, just not what I was expecting.

 

Dried down: Still nutty, but with a bit more of that sweetness, and I'm getting a teensy bit of booze back into this.

 

Throw: This doesn't really have much throw on me.

 

Verdict: *** Again, not that I mind smelling like nuts, but I think I had some high hopes for it that it didn't meet. At least not this time. I do this I might give it another test sometime, but I don't think I'm going to grab a bottle just yet.

[killersandliars]

I wanted to try a really hardcore foodie scent from BPAL, as I have mostly avoided them to this point. I am not hugely into sugary or baked-goodsy gourmands in general, though I do occasionally like something along those lines if the mood strikes. I figured that since this also had the element of the butter and the rum that might temper the sweetness just a bit. (For the record, I considered Butter Rum Cookie as well, but I eventually settled on this.) My husband and I are big rum afficionadoes, we have quite the collection of rum and we generally use it in the best kinds of rum drinks: tiki drinks. However, I have tried winter's rum staple, the hot buttered rum, and I am not entirely opposed to it. The BPAL scent version is much more delicious than the real thing, though. The molasses and the cream are indeed very sweet, but the rum and the spices make it much more interesting and layered. It has a baked goods quality to it, but there is a little more depth to it too, just like a good handmade cocktail. Hot Buttered Rum is also VERY strong on me, it throws for a long way and lasts and lasts. Not that I am complaining. It wraps me in a nice fuzzy blanket of spicy warmth that follows me around even when it's cold out. It has definitely satisfied my gourmand curiosity and I'll also probably spring for more rum-based scents in the future because this one worked out so nicely.

[agirlnamedfury]

So buttery and sweet! This is surprisingly un-boozy on me (unfortunately!) -- I get barely any rum. But it's mellow and nutty and delicious.

 

This actually seems very similar to Butter Rum Cookie, which I tested just the other day -- and that makes sense, as I'm sure they have many of the same notes. Still, maybe a side-by-side comparison is in order to see which I prefer?

[Little Bird]

Buttery, sweet cinnamon, something like maple syrup, and toasted, sugared, roasted nuts. It doesn't smell like a drink to me so much as a pastry scent. I actually find this to be a little too sweet on my skin.

[fairybites]

This review is for the 2020 Winter release.

 

Buttery rum, creamy and spicy. The molasses comes through at the end. It loses a little bit of the rum note when it dries. A creamy spiced molasses buttery dream. It's really delicious and very very sweet.

 

I have to agree that it reminds me of Butter Rum Cookie, but my 2009 bottle is heavier on the spices and has a bready note that Hot Buttered Rum lacks but makes up for with the cream note. I think if you have one, you probably won't need both. And if I didn't already have BRC as a bottle, I would have upgraded this. But I will keep this decant around to see if layering the two would be good and if so, I may just upgrade to a partial bottle. I'm not done testing my Winter decants, but this is one of my favorites so far!

 

Update after testing the 2011 version: 2011 HBR is bubblegum? If you're trying to get this version, 2011 in my case was not similar at all. I can't speak for the 2014 version, but I feel that even that one would be a good substitute.

 

Link to my 2011 review if you are curious about the differences.

Edited May 25, 2021 by fairybites
Update with 2011 comparison

[splendidissima]

For the 2020 Winter release!

 

It's very buttery and creamy and a note that's almost maple syrup, or maybe molasses! It's almost...not...that much...rum...? It's sweet and thick and rich and warm, and I like it, especially because it's been so cold here lately!

 

Sadly, my skin just eats this, I don't know why. It billows up in a big decadent cloud when first applied - under ten minutes later (I know because we were watching a YouTube video that was 9 minutes and some seconds), I literally could not find it on my wrist. If I sniff really closely there might be some faint warm spice, but that might be wishful thinking. Where, where, has the rum gone, to paraphrase a line...?

 

Awesome Husband said it was "heavy and boozy," which isn't necessarily a negative, but apparently he gets the rum much more than I do!

[donkehpoo]

2020 style!

 

Wet: Buttery. Creamy. Spicy. Rum-y. Unfortunately also a little bit.. plasticky. 

 

Dry: Same as the wet stage.. but without the rum.  instead of Hot Buttered Rum, it's Hot Buttered Plastic on me. Dangit.