Additives to hydrocarbon fuels are commonly explored to change the combustion dynamics, chemical distribution, and/or product integrity. Here we employ a novel aluminum-based molecular additive, Al(I) tetrameric duster [AlBrNEt3](4) (Et = C2H5), to a hydrocarbon fuel and evaluate the resultant single-droplet combustion properties. This Al-4 cluster offers a soluble alternative to nanoscale particulate additives that have recently been explored and may mitigate the observed problems of particle aggregation. Results show the [AlBrNEt3](4) additive to increase the burn rate constant of a toluene-diethyl ether fuel mixture by similar to 20% in a room temperature oxygen environment with only 39 mM of active aluminum additive (0.16 wt % limited by additive solubility). In comparison, a roughly similar addition of nano-aluminum particulate shows no discernible difference in bum properties of the hydrocarbon fuel. High speed video shows the [AlBrNEt3](4) to induce microexplosive gas release events during the last similar to 30% of the droplet combustion time. We attribute this to HBr gas release based on results of temperature-programmed reaction (TPR) experiments of the [AlBrNEt3](4) dosed with O-2 and D2O. A possible mechanism of burn rate enhancement is presented that is consistent with microexplosion observations and TPR results.