The Potting Shed

Guides, gift ideas and honest answers from the people who hand-pack every kit.

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A bottle of dark spiced rum beside a jar of steeping spices, cinnamon sticks and star anise on a wooden table.

Rum vs spiced rum: what spicing actually changes

Spiced rum is rum with spices steeped in it, nothing more. What that changes, why shop bottles taste sweeter, and how spicing your own puts you in charge.

A kintsugi-repaired bowl with golden seams and a bottle of homemade spiced rum on a wooden table in low autumn light.

New hobby ideas for autumn evenings: makes you can finish in a weekend

Two autumn hobbies with a visible finish line: a golden kintsugi repair done in an evening, and a bottle of spiced rum ready inside a week.

A tall glass of spiced rum and ginger beer over ice with a lime wedge, beside a bottle of homemade spiced rum.

Spiced rum cocktails: six drinks to make with your own bottle

Six cocktails for homemade spiced rum, from a dark and stormy to a warm mulled rum, plus which blend suits which drink and what to keep in.

A jar of dark rum infusing with cinnamon bark, star anise, cloves and strips of orange peel on a farmhouse kitchen table.

What goes into spiced rum? The spices, explained one by one

Vanilla, cassia, clove, nutmeg, allspice, star anise, ginger and citrus peel: what each spice contributes to spiced rum and how fast each one infuses.