The best bonfire night food is anything you can eat standing up, in the dark, with cold hands, and the best bonfire night drink is something warming you prepared days earlier. Homemade jerky and homemade spiced rum tick both boxes almost perfectly, and a bottle of hot sauce turns whatever else is going on the table into something worth queueing for. None of it needs cooking on the night, which matters when the fireworks start at seven.
The fifth of November has a particular problem: everybody is outside, nobody wants to be indoors plating things up, and the food has to survive being carried around a garden. Solve that in advance and the evening runs itself.
What actually works as bonfire night food?
Three qualities matter, and most classic bonfire food has at least two of them.
- It can be eaten one-handed. The other hand is holding a drink, a sparkler or a small child.
- It does not go cold and sad. Anything that needs to arrive at the table hot is fighting a losing battle in a November garden.
- It was made in advance. The whole appeal of the evening is being outside for it, not indoors listening to it through a window.
Jacket potatoes and toffee apples have earned their place for exactly these reasons. Homemade jerky belongs on the same list and rarely gets there, which is a shame, because it is arguably the most practical thing you could hand round.
Why is jerky the ideal firework food?
Because it is dry, portable, keeps for weeks and tastes of something. It goes in a coat pocket, it does not need a plate, and it is exactly the sort of savoury, chewy thing you want when you have been standing in the cold for an hour.
Our Beef Jerky Making Kit uses a simplified oven method that takes a few hours rather than the days traditional air-drying needs, and it is close to foolproof. You supply around 500g of lean beef per batch, and the kit makes two batches, seasoned with either the BBQ blend or the chilli and garlic one. Thin-cut frying steak or brisket both work really well, and lean is what matters most, because fat does not dry properly.
The method: slice the beef thin, season it, then dry it slowly in the oven on a low heat until firm. Two tips make a real difference. Put the beef in the freezer for thirty minutes before slicing, which makes thin, even slices far easier to cut. And slice across the grain for tender jerky, or with the grain if you prefer a chewier bite.
If your oven will not go low enough, set it to its very lowest setting and hang a tea towel between the door and the oven so the door stays slightly ajar. That drops the temperature and lets moisture escape, and at the slightly higher heat it may be ready closer to the two hour mark, so keep an eye on it. A dehydrator works too, at 65°C for ten to twelve hours.
You will know it is done when it is firm and dry to the touch and bends without snapping. Store it in an airtight container and well-dried jerky keeps for a couple of weeks, longer refrigerated, which means you can make it the weekend before without a second thought. It is gluten free and lactose free, too, which is handy when you are feeding a garden full of people.
What should you drink outside in November?
Something warming, and ideally something with a story attached, since standing around a fire is one of the few occasions where people will actually ask what they are drinking.
Spiced rum is the obvious answer. It works neat, over ice, in cola, or stirred into something hot with lemon and honey for the people who have lost feeling in their fingers. Making it yourself takes about a week from start to bottle, so the last weekend in October is the moment to begin if you want it ready for the fifth.
The process is short on effort. Clean the jar with warm water, add a spice sachet and a 700ml bottle of inexpensive dark rum that has not already been spiced, then leave it somewhere cool and dark for 72 hours, tasting with the pipette as it goes. Filter out the spices with the cotton filter, let it settle for two or three days so the sediment drops, filter once more, then bottle and label it. That second filter is what separates a clear bottle from a cloudy one.
Our Spiced Rum Making Kit makes two 700ml batches in two flavours, a Captain's blend of classic pirate spice and a Jamaican ginger, and ginger in particular is very much at home on a cold night. You are in charge of the strength: longer in the spices for a bolder bottle, filtered earlier for something gentler. Once bottled, drink it within a year, sealed and out of direct sunlight.
One sensible note. Whoever is handling fireworks or tending the bonfire should stay off the rum until the job is done, and the bottle is better brought out once everything has finished going bang.
How do you time it all?
Work backwards from the fifth and it is comfortable rather than rushed.
- About a week before. Start the spiced rum, since 72 hours of infusing plus two to three days of settling adds up to roughly seven days.
- The weekend before. Make the jerky. A few hours in a low oven, then straight into an airtight container where it will happily wait.
- The weekend before, if you fancy it. Make a bottle of hot sauce as well. Garlicky sauces taste noticeably better after a day or two in the fridge, so making them early is genuinely the better plan.
- On the day. Bake the potatoes, light the fire, put everything else out and go outside.
The rum kit and the jerky kit are both hand-packed in Britain, and neither of our drinks kits contains any alcohol itself, so you buy the bottle separately. Between them they cover the two things a bonfire night genuinely needs, and both leave you with plenty spare for the rest of the month.
Bonfire night FAQs
How far in advance can I make the jerky?
Well-dried jerky keeps for around a couple of weeks in an airtight container, and refrigerating extends that, so the weekend before is ideal.
What beef should I buy for jerky?
Lean beef, as lean as you can find, since fat does not dry well. Thin-cut frying steak and brisket both work really well, and you need about 500g per batch.
My oven will not go low enough, what do I do?
Set it to its lowest setting and hang a tea towel between the door and the oven so the door stays ajar. That lowers the temperature and lets moisture out, and it may finish sooner.
When should I start the spiced rum for the fifth of November?
About a week before. Infusing takes around 72 hours and the rum needs a further two to three days to settle before the second filtering.
Can I make both kits at the same time?
Easily. The rum spends most of its week sitting in a cupboard doing nothing, so the jerky can be made in the middle of it without any clash.
Getting ahead for the fifth? Have a browse through all our kits.
