As a “flavor correspondent” for McCormick Grill Mates I was tasked to come up with a recipe for the “shaken/stirred concept” as presented in the annual flavor forecast.

Flavored spirits are especially popular these days and they make it easy to add a nice “flavor infusion” to your next cook-out. The shelves of my local liquor store abound with fun flavors such as ginger vodka, passionfruit rum, mango tequila- you get the picture. Your marinating options are endless.

For this particular recipe I chose pineapple rum to complement the Hawaiian flavors in McCormick Grill Mates Hawaiian Luau Marinade. This marinade offers flavors of pineapple, brown sugar, chili pepper and soy sauce so I replaced the vinegar component of the marinade with the pineapple rum and it complemented the pork chops perfectly!

Pork chops are a prime candidate for marinating with spirits as it keeps them moist and adds mild sweetness to whatever else you flavor with. My other favorite for porkchops is to marinate in a whisky-brown sugar- chili pepper concoction.

This video shows how to make a simple marinade using pineapple rum as part of the marinade, then shows how to make a mojito with the rum while you wait for the grill to heat up! I love grilling with spirits!