Make your own Bay Rum aftershave and smell like an Old West Texas Cowboy!
Makes a tad over 1/2 cup or about 4-5 oz.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of gin (prefered) or vodka ( if you’re a teetotaler you can use witch hazel )
2 tablespoons jamaican rum ( take a few gulps yourself… for medicinal purposes!)
2 dried bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon whole allspice
1 cinnamon stick and 1 small orange, zested ( fine peel scrapings!)
Directions:
1. Mix everything together and pour into a clean jar with a tight-fitting lid.
2. Place this jar in a dark and cool place for 2 weeks.
3. After 2 weeks, strain off the liquid using a coffee filter or very fine mesh screen and pour into a clean container.
4. Discard the zest and other remaining solids.
Use: Splash it on your face after shaving and I can guarantee you’ll have women flocking around you… of course the only women who remember this stuff are going on eighty years old now but I’m sure you can out run ’em if they’s using their walkers.
.Cautions and claims:
1- Do not use under arm pits, instead, just take a bath if you smell bad.
2- Using Bay Rum has been shown to increase the labido and story telling abilities in grandfathers.
3- Not to be used by those who are married, thinking of becoming married or any male under the age of say…18.
4- Any claims of Bay Rum curing gout, lung wheezes, bullet wounds and bow legs has not been approved by the FDA. Nor will it ever be.
On a more serious note: Bay Rum is making a big comeback! It smells fresh and has an Island scent that women and Cowboys loved.
campfireshadows 
I know what cowboys smell like… and that ain’t it! Ha Ha, Great post!
Here you go again, forcing me to teach history 101, ha ha. The one common act done by nearly every man who shaved with a straight razor was to apply an astringent like Bay Rum to the face after shaving. Today its sold as a ‘skin bracer’. This was done for two reasons.1- Externally applied astringents, which cause mild coagulation of skin proteins, dry, harden, and protect the skin. 2- to disinfect the fresh wounds produced by the razor.
On a cattle drive, shaving the wranglers was many times the duty of the camp cook. Room for personal items was very limited. For a Cowboy to carry a shaving set consiting of a straight razor, a leather belt strop, a cup of soap, the brush, towel, water and aftershave would have been to much. A cook was the one person who had this room available in his chuck wagon. When time permitted, the cook would shave as many men as possible in one sitting. When a cowboy got to town, the very first thing he did (if he didn’t hit the saloon and whorehouse first) was to get a haircut and shave. A freshly shaved Cowboy smelled like the aftershave the barber used on him, most likely Bay Rum. Bay Rum was a product made in the West Indies and was readily available in big cities. On the trail, the cook would use the cooking herb ‘bay leaf’ and booze to make his own. This recipe here is a trail made recipe. The biggest difference was West Indian Bay Rum was distilled with rum and the leaves and/or berries of the West Indian bay tree, or Pimenta racemosa. Trail or homemade Bay Rum was made with the bay laurel or common cooking bay leaf and are from a completely unrelated species, or Laurus nobilis. Bay laurel can be used to produce a similar, although not identical product. So go tell your Cowboys they too can smell real nice like and don’t have to go around smelling like an old sweat drenched boot! Just hand ’em some Bay Rum aftershave.
LMAO! I can’t stop laughing Joe. I can’t…this is too funny and deserves more attention. I want to use it as a post for Cowboy Poetry Press! Please let me! – E
Go for it! I actually received this recipe years ago from a barber friend of mine when money was tight and the kids (4) were plenty. I made it up and it wasn’t too shabby. Of course this was in the days that Hi Karate and Aqua Velva made the man. OK, so I smelled like an old geezer… but my wife thought I smelled sexy! 🙂
PS. let me know when you post it. Joe
Wow, I have never made diy aftershaves.Guess it is time to make my first Bay Rum aftershave =))
Most folks never have either. Maybe they just have a hard time plashing booze on their chops rather than drinking it.