Allspice dram — pimento dram, in the Jamaican usage that gave allspice its local name — is whole allspice berries infused into overproof rum and sweetened into a dark, warmly spiced cordial. Allspice tastes like clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg at once, which is exactly why the berries were named for "all spice" rather than one; dram concentrates that into a single pour that reads as all three.
Don the Beachcomber's Secret
Donn Beach built several of his original Hollywood recipes — the Rum Barrel among them — around a house allspice-and-vanilla blend he kept off his visible bottle line specifically so rival bars couldn't copy it by tasting. Modern allspice dram (St. Elizabeth, The Bitter Truth) reconstructs the spice half of that house blend; it isn't a secret anymore, but it still isn't a supermarket staple, which makes a homemade batch worth having on hand.
The Build
Whole allspice berries, lightly cracked to expose more surface area, steep in overproof rum for one to two weeks, then get strained and sweetened with a rich syrup to bring the cordial to drinking strength.
Crack, Don't Grind
Crack the berries with the flat of a knife or a mortar and pestle rather than grinding them to powder — powder infuses fast but leaves fine sediment that's hard to strain out cleanly and clouds the final cordial.
Overproof Rum, for a Reason
A higher-proof base extracts the allspice oils faster and more completely than a standard 40% rum, which matters over a one-to-two-week infusion. The dram gets cut down with syrup at the end regardless, so the extra proof going in doesn't make the finished cordial noticeably stronger.
Storage and Shelf Life
The rum base and sugar content make allspice dram one of the more stable house cordials — about two months refrigerated, well past most fruit syrups. The spice character mellows slowly rather than dropping off a cliff, so an older batch is softer, not spoiled.
Bottom Line
A quarter-ounce of allspice dram is doing more work in a tiki recipe than its small pour suggests — it's usually the difference between a rum-and-citrus drink and one that reads as genuinely spiced. Worth the two-week wait.