Asian Pear Liquer

My mom's friend has an asian pear in her yard. She gave my mom a huge shopping bag full. This is what i made with some of them...

no good pics of liquer, syrup or drink... here's a pear

Asian Pear Liquer

First, infuse rum with the pears.
Chop any amount of pears and place in a large jar, crock, vessel, whatever.
Cover completely with rum.
Shake every day.
I think I might have done 6-8 pears in my 2 cups of rum.

then make simple syrup by heating equal amounts of sugar and water on the stovetop.
I had leftover spiced syrup from a cranberry sangria I made for Thanksgiving

2 C sugar
2 C water
8 allspice
6 cloves
3 star anise
3 cinnamon sticks

This was from a Jose Garces recipe on Chow. Bring to a boil stirring regularly. Take off heat and let spices steep til cool. Strain, bottle, and fridge.

I had several different fruit infusions I had made but the pear worked great with this spice combo.
I ended up with this ratio:

2 C pear infused rum
1 C spiced simple syrup

Now this is really tasty but my plan kind of backfired. I don't really drink liquers straight and I dont have many recipes wanting spiced pear liquers. Plain old pear rum night have been better for mixing. The inital fruit infusion is going to lower the abv a bit but Im not quite sure how to accurately calculate it. Cutting the infusion with simple syrup at a 2:1 ratio cuts the proof in half. So, at most it is 20% abv, but really probably more like 15%. Tasting tiny sips while making it this seemed fine but in retrospect and in mixed drinks this is a bit too sweet. I decided to try it out for making hot buttered rum, since that is spiced and sweetened, and my concoction would take a step out of that recipe. It was tasty but too sweet. Here's what I ended up using it for:

Hot Pear Pie

4-6oz boiling water
1 oz asian pear liquer
1 oz smith & cross rum
thick pat of butter (1tsp- 1Tbl)

Boil water and pour it in a glass, start with 4 oz. Add booze and butter. If it's too boozy add a little more water to your taste. Garnish with a cinnamon stick if you like.

Butter sounds gross in a drink but wait until its super cold out and then it will all make sense.Rich, warm and comforting. Smith & Cross is a funky, high proof Jamaican rum. It tastes like fermented magic, not like the sweetish liquor that rum usually is. Its high proof and its weird funkiness really helps to balance out the super sweet pear. It's really good altogether. You could probably make other fruit flavored hot buttered rums with different liquers, using that Smith & Cross to balance it out.