Spice Up Your Spirits for Valentine’s Day

Spice Up Your Spirits for Valentine’s Day: Travel Distilled recommends some spiced rums, gins, vodkas, and tequilas.

It’s long been thought that spices are good for the love life. Eating spices like cloves and ginger increases the blood flow, which should make for a more passionate Valentine’s night. Red wine is already known to be good in that respect too, but if your idea of a spicy spirit is Fireball Cinnamon Whisky you definitely need to up the ante and get a special liquor for a special occasion. Here are some of our favorites.

Tanteo Jalapeño Tequila

If tequila is your tipple there are several spicy options to choose from. One that is 100% blue agave is Tanteo’s Jalapeño Tequila, which has picked up lots of awards. It manages to retain the taste of the agave but spices it up by infusing the tequila with jalapeño peppers, but also retains a bit of the sweetness that peppers have too. It gives margaritas a real kick, and if you like it Tanteo also does habanero and chipotle tequilas as well. tanteotequila.com.

Maggie’s Farm Spiced Rum

Spiced rums are a common style of rum, and among the spices usually used are cinnamon, pepper, cloves, and cardamom. One of the most-awarded spiced rums around comes, surprisingly, not from the Caribbean but from Pittsburgh. This independent craft distillery uses all-natural ingredients and infuses its regular white rum with Tahitian vanilla bean, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, anise, and fresh-grated orange zest, to produce a quality spiced rum. maggiesfarmrum.com.

Old New Orleans Cajun Spiced Rum

New Orleans is famous for spirits and spices, and this spiced rum brings them both together. The distillery takes all the spices that traditionally go into Cajun cuisine – cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, ginger, and cayenne, along with vanilla and chicory – and creates a kind of tea-bag with them all in it. They then steep their regular rum in this for 4-6 weeks to produce New Orleans in a bottle. oldneworleansrum.com.

Cascade Chipotle Pepper-Flavored Vodka

You don’t have to be in the Southwest or Mexico to like your flavors hot. This sizzling vodka comes from the little town of Sisters in Oregon, using local spring water. The vodka is infused with slow-smoked jalapeños to produce a drink that is deliciously smoky and very reasonably priced. You can read a proper review of it here. cascadestreetdistillery.com.

Opihr Oriental Spiced Gin

Most gins contain some spices, although it isn’t actually a legal requirement. Cinnamon, coriander, and nutmeg are all common. If you want a gin that’s really been spiced up, though, try this English London Dry Gin. The flavor’s been enhanced by including a bunch of spices that were originally brought back to the UK along the Old Silk Road. These include Indonesian cubeb berries, Indian black pepper, cumin seeds, cardamom, and ginger. See my full review here. opihr.com.

Darnley’s View Spiced Gin

This English gin is so heavily-spiced that some critics have said that the spices overpower the juniper so much that it isn’t really gin at all. So if you like spices but don’t like gin’s juniper taste, try this. Spices include cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cumin, cloves, and coriander. An unusual addition is grains of paradise from West Africa. This is a member of the ginger family, and the seeds give an extra pepperiness to the drink. darnleysview.com.

St George Green Chile Vodka

Made in Alameda, California, this superior spicy vodka uses California-grown hot and sweet peppers (jalapenos, Serranos, habaneros, red and yellow bell peppers) to produce a spirit you can sip or use to hot up a cocktail. It’s a very subtle vodka and you can read my review of it here. stgeorgespirits.com.

Ancho Reyes Ancho Chili Liqueur

To round off the meal, and keep the spices flowing, try a sip of this liqueur that’s infused with spicy ancho chiles. You can sip it on its own, if you like your flavors strong, or you can use it to add a dash of fire to a late-night coffee or even a hot chocolate. anchoreyes.com.