Falernum

Falernum is a low-proof spiced liqueur from Barbados and the wider Caribbean, a sweetened cane-sugar syrup built around lime, clove, ginger and almond over a rum base. Traditionally made by macerating fresh lime peel, cloves and other warm spices with almonds in Barbados rum and cane-sugar syrup, it is thick, pale-straw to gold, and gently boozy — the most famous bottling, John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum, sits at only about 11% ABV. There is also a widely used non-alcoholic falernum, made as a plain spiced syrup, so the name covers both a liqueur and a mixer. Sweet, tart and aromatic rather than bitter, it is almost never drunk on its own; instead it is a workhorse sweetener-and-spice in tiki and rum cocktails, essential to the Bajan Corn 'n' Oil and to classics like the Zombie, the Mai Tai family and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. A dash or half-ounce adds lime, clove and a marzipan roundness that plain sugar syrup cannot.