With the coming of winter, mixologists usually reach for rich, dark liquors to spike a punch or stiffen eggnog. Now it seems that bourbon and scotch, while still as popular as ever, are making room for an old spirit that’s finally getting the attention it deserves: rum. With the city limits home to two new distilleries that make rum, as well as a hospitality industry willing to showcase exceptional imports in cocktails and tastings, it looks like rum is the favored brown liquor this year.

The cocktail scene has been trending toward rum’s ascendancy for years. Even when the single-malt scotch craze was in full swing, it was logical to think that that rum’s range of flavors and diversity of distillation methods, not to mention its multiple countries of origin, would make it a natural successor to the regionally-specific flavors of scotch.

Drinkers have now come to appreciate the caramel taste of black rum made from molasses, the oakiness of aged Jamaican rums, and the sweet and yeasty taste of Martinique rum agricole made of fresh cane juice. The tropical heat and humidity of the Caribbean, like the high altitude and Atlantic exposure of scotch distilleries, also accounts for the variety of rum’s flavors.

“People are looking for sipping rum—we’re not talking mixers,” says Sean Mulligan, beverage manager of the Jefferson Hotel (1200 16th St. NW), which offers deluxe rum tasting flights for $25 to $100, depending on the number and types of rums selected. The newly expanded tasting panel includes two of Martinique’s Neisson rum agricoles, two single-barrel rums from Barbados, as well as three ages of El Dorado demerara rums from Guyana.

In the recent past, whiskies and cognac have had a lock on the sipping spirits category. So rum makers turned to cheap flavored rum to compete with flavored vodka used in candy-like cocktails. This hurt rum’s already shaky reputation as the flavorless alcohol thrown in with cola or fruit juice and only consumed in tropical climes.

Rum’s return to prominence means mixologists like Frank Crespo at Jefferson Hotel’s speakeasy-style bar, Quill, are treating rum like whiskey.

The Flannel In Fashion is a very old variation on the old fashioned with “a combination of Mount Gay Black Barrel rum instead of bourbon and Madeira, which was [rum’s] contemporary of that period,” says Crespo. “This is pretty mild and soft; you don’t have the bite of bourbon or rye.”

Sailor Jerry spiced rum appears in Quill’s Rihanna Said You Needed Me, a dessert drink with egg, house made banana syrup, orange juice, Angostura bitters, and bittersweet chocolate shavings. The effect of this drink is like biting into a Boston cream doughnut, with bitter chocolate on top, a sweet cake scent on the nose, and a cool custard flavor in the center.

Local distilleries are also making their mark in the cocktail scene. District Distilling Co. (1414 U St. NW) has a white rum that proves it doesn’t have to be brown to have a distinctive taste. Buzzard Point, made from unrefined panela sugar, is rich and flavorful.

“Molasses would be too one-dimensional for our needs,” says general manager Said Haddad. “Panela gives it that old world, crude sugar taste,” he says. We’re having a lot of fun with it behind the bar; our Mai Tai is crushing it right now.”

This classic is made from their white rum, Breckenridge spiced rum, Giffard’s orgeat, and lime juice.

Lucas B. Smith, formerly a regular behind the bar at Dram & Grain, makes his namesake Negroni Lucconi at his gig as mixologist for Cotton & Reed rum distillery (1330 5th St. NE). In addition to Cotton & Reed white rum and Campari, this cocktail is made with Smith’s own rum tincture of macerated herbs and aromatized rum. Like gin, this tincture has juniper, bitter orange peel, angelica root, orris root, licorice, and coriander. The tincture gives the drink a “saffron-gold hue under the Campari,” says Smith. “Negronis don’t look like that.”

The classic Daiquiri is making a comeback as well. The aged daiquiri at Hay-Adam’s Off The Record (800 16th St. NW) combines 15-year-old Appleton Jamaican rum with Maker’s Mark bourbon in the lime sour up drink. The richness of oaky rum and vanillin-sweet bourbon makes this a tropical drink fit for winter sipping.

Use Demerara rum like a whiskey to make a Rum Old Fashioned. Vermont’s Mad River Distillery’s First Run Demerara rum is aged in bourbon barrels and gets its rich sugary flavor from the raw sugar distillate.

• 2 oz. Demerara rum
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• lemon twist
• dash tiki or Angostura bitters

Muddle lemon twist, bitters and sugar in an old fashioned glass. Add ice and rum and stir until sugar dissolves.