Thread: do it yourself bay rum?

I'm planning on trying my hand at making my own bay rum a./s and was curious as to where you get your bay leaves? I understand that the leaves for a/s differs from bay leaves for cooking. Any other tips on making your own will be appreciated.

Bay leaves for aftershave come from the Caribbean bay rum tree (Pimenta racemosa). Culinary bay leaves are usually Bay laurel and sometimes the California bay tree. Only the Caribbean bay would be used for a traditional bay rum aftershave. I know that the island of Grenada is an important producer of Caribbean bay.

You'd have better luck getting bay oil. I imagine that importing the raw leaves would be an agricultural problem. Not to mention trying to distil oil from them.

I want to make my own Bay Rum very badly, but everytime I go to the liqour store I come home with either Canadian whiskey, Brandy or Cognac!

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

I want to make my own Bay Rum very badly, but everytime I go to the liqour store I come home with either Canadian whiskey, Brandy or Cognac!

HA! That was funny.

I'm using three different recipes of bay rum (Jockey's, and then two variations on the theme) and using fresh laurel leaves. Different than the traditional bay leaf, but not out of place in the fragrance at all. I think either species is fine.

Only Pimenta racemosa leaves would produce the Bay Rum smell. Laurel leaves smell good too but they do not smell like Bay Rum. One thing that you may want to try is buying the essential oil directly instead of attempting to extract it yourself. From what I have seen in this forum about different recipes to make "Bay Rum", there seem to be several problems with the methods of extraction used by people. Maceration is definitely not the best method of extraction. When maceration is used to extract natural products, in this case an essential oil, you are also left with many other, sometimes undesirable, chemicals. Needless to say, some of these chemicals may not be good for your skin (salts, tannins, etc...). If the idea is making your own, which is something that I really like to do whenever possible, try to use the correct materials and methods for good results. If the idea is to save money, I am afraid that the savings would not be as much as you may think. For once, you may use rum or other heavily taxed spirits to extract the aromatics. If you add the price of the leaves, your time, gas to buy all the stuff, etc.., you may end up spending close to the price of a bottle of Great Bay Rum (costs less than $20) for a mediocre product, that is, if you do not use the proper method and ingredients. In any case, the decision is ultimately yours.

Al raz.

I have been messing around with this b/c I have had to shave more with my job and ran into some razor burn problems.

I got that bottle of Rubbing alchohol from the back of my cabinet and split it into two smaller bottles and put a bunch of dried cloves in one and fresh rosemary in the other.

I used the cloves the next day and was pleased with the results.
The rubbing alchohal smells horrible, but evaporates within a couple minutes then the clove smell lasted a while.

I have not tried the rosemary yet and I have only used the clove once, so I don't know about any long term effects, but so far so good.

I also have not been able to find a straight razor or a DE yet, though I do have a brush and mug.

A week ago I made some with bay leaves and am leaving it sit for a month. I'll let you know how it turns out.

My Clove AS is working pretty well.
It has Matured, I guess is a good word.
The Rosemary is almost a total bust. I will let it sit a little longer, but so far it has no Rosemary smell.

several people (including me) posted recipes here:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/after...m-recipes.html

if you follow my recipe, it will be very dark and spicy. i buy my fresh bay leaves at World Market or Sprout's