This is a wonderful time of year, and Halloween is one of the best excuses for partying ever invented! So in that spirit, we offer a couple of ideas for spooky entertainment.
First for the drinks (have to keep our priorities straight). Halloween specialty drinks tend to be, shall we say, “yuck.” Some really look cool, but the flavors are not so much. We prefer to take a standard cocktail, rename it and put it in a costume. For instance, a chocolate martini in a glass rimed with melting chocolate and a chocolate spider web. Or a “Dark and Spooky” with a black sugar rim.
For an eerie green drink try equal parts Midori, vodka, simple syrup and lemon juice, (aka Midori sour.)
You can also add a little dry ice for that smoking fog effect – just be very careful. Dry ice will burn you and can break glassware. Do not put dry ice directly into a glass. Someone could easily burn their mouth or worse, swallow it and be seriously injured. The safest way is to drop a small amount into a punch bowl. By “small,” I mean a chip or two. Also, don’t use dry ice in any drink with eggs, milk or cream. The dry ice won’t smoke, it will foam.
While a smoking drink is fun, nothing beats a drink on fire! Choose any Tiki drink or sour. Name it something ghoulish like “Mr. Hyde.” Serve it neat in a large round wine glass, filling it less than half way. For the flame, float an inverted lemon or lime hull with a little piece of toast soaked in 151 proof rum. Light the rum and serve the drink – with a straw.
Now for some drink recipes:
Dark Chocolate Martini
This works best if you chill or freeze the vodka. Makes a fun Halloween concoction.
- Raw sugar
- Finely chopped dark chocolate
- 2 oz. chilled vodka
- 2 oz. chocolate liqueur such as Godiva or Starbucks
- 1 dash orange juice
- Chill a martini glass with ice and water
- Combine sugar and chocolate.
- Empty and dry the glass then moisten rim with orange juice or water and coat with mixture.
- Combine vodka, chocolate liqueur and orange juice in a mixing glass with ice
- Stir to thoroughly chill, but do not over dilute.
- Strain into rimmed glass.
- Garnish with an orange peal.
Dark and Spooky
This is a Dark n Stormy with a couple of twists. It makes a fun Halloween drink, especially since the kids can be included with drinks sans the rum. Note that black decorating sugar and black gummy spiders may need to be ordered in advance.
- Black sugar for the rim
- 1 black gummy spider
- 2 oz. dark rum
- 2 oz. lime juice plus 1 lime wedge
- 2 oz. ginger beer or ginger ale
- Rub lime wedge around the rim of an old fashioned glass and coat with black sugar
- Combine lime juice and rum in a shaker with ice and shake
- Strain into rimed old fashioned glass over fresh ice
- Top with ginger beer or ale
- Garnish with the black gummy spider
Lily’s Aperitif
I saw somewhere a cocktail recipe that contained Gin, Suze and Blue Curaçao. The drink was, of course, a brilliant green. So in my pursuit of holiday cocktails, this was perfect! This wonderful aperitif is named after Lily the Haunted Doll. She is the slightly creepier version of the Christmas surveillance doll “Elf on a Shelf.” The idea being that, after you adopt her, she haunts various places in your home.
For the cocktail, we chose the slightly floral Oxley Gin, Suze, Carpano Dry Vermouth, and blue curacao. The nose is bright with citrus and juniper from both the Gin and Suze. The taste is bittersweet with orange, botanicals, and a bit of spice. The finish is long with juniper, a touch of pine and gentian.
Ingredients
- 1 oz. Oxley Gin
- 2 oz. Suze
- 1 oz. Dry Vermouth
- 1/2 oz. Blue Curaçao
- 2 drops Doc Elliott’s Actually Bitter Orange Bitters
- Lemon peel for garnish
- Chill a cocktail glass with ice and water
- Combine all ingredients except the garnish in a mixing glass with ice and stir to chill
- Double strain into chilled cocktail glass
- Express the lemon peel over the drink and discard the peel
Icy Fingers – a Frozen Martini
I had read about freezing martinis and thought it would be fun to try. Frozen martinis are nothing new, but my various recipes turned into an interesting experiment. Just to set things straight, a “frozen martini” is not a slushie like a “frozen margarita.” It is a batched martini, placed in a bottle and put in the freezer.
So, why freeze a martini? Well, a frozen martini is colder than ice and bone dry with a silky-smooth mouth feel. As the temperature of a drink decreases, so do the flavors of sweet, sour, and bitter, while the taste of salt or brininess increases. Herbal and floral flavors also change with some increasing and others decreasing. These changes can be amazing – both good and bad! More on that in a minute.
Batching cocktails makes sense for events, pop-ups and even when entertaining at home. The ability to pour a craft cocktail from a bottle really helps when you are “in the weeds” bartending. It’s also nice at home when you would like a little more but don’t want to make a whole martini.
There are a couple of caveats. First is your freezer. Even if you have a commercial freezer, you need to have a freezer thermometer. The temperature needs to remain stable at around 50 F. A temperature of 00 – 70 F will allow you to serve a cocktail at 25%-30% ABV. Prior to attempting to freeze your martinis you need to measure your freezer’s temperature at various times of the day. It will probably be coldest in the morning when it hasn’t been opened. The coldest temperature is the one you will use to calculate your batches’ ABV.
The second caveat is that liquids lowered to subfreezing temperatures tend to form ice. There are a few things you can do to make this occur less often.
- Keep the ABV close to 30%. This will give you a little margin of error.
- Shake the bottle really well to thoroughly mix your batch before freezing.
- Avoid bumping or jarring the bottle once it’s frozen.
- Use a screw cap or cage top bottle. Don’t use a bottle with a cork. Removing the cork will create a slight vacuum in the bottle. Enough to turn the batch to ice.
When your batch does ice, (and it will happen), just set it on the bar and let it warm up. Add a little gin and refreeze the batch.
When selecting your gin, I recommend a London Dry. At least choose something that is not overly herbal or floral. I’ve settled on Botanist. The subtle salinity really works when frozen. For an example of what doesn’t work, I tried Gompers Gin. I really like Gompers. It makes a great Martini or G&T. But there is a subtle flavor of pear in Gompers that when frozen, overwhelms every other flavor. So much for that batch.
Our recipe:
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 oz. Botanist Gin
- 1/4 oz. Dry Vermouth
- 1/4 oz. Bianco Vermouth
- Short dash Doc Elliott’s Olive Bitters
For a 500 ml Batch with a freezer set to 50 F, this calculates to:
- 300 ml Gin
- 50 ml Dry Vermouth
- 50 ml Bianco Vermouth
- 100 ml water
- 4 dashes Doc Elliott’s Olive Bitters
Use this spread sheet to calculate your batch volumes: ABV Batch Freeze Calc
A 20% dilution will make the drink a little strong but allows you to freeze it without icing. The spread sheet’s freezing calculation is only accurate for an ABV of 20% – 34%. It uses the fact that the freezing point of alcohol is a strait line in that ABV range.
Lastly, remember to freeze your glassware!
To serve:
- Pour desired volume of Frozen Martini into a frozen cocktail glass
- Garnish with olives
Pinochle
We have used agave or maguey worm salt, (Sal de Gusano) in versions of mezcal and tequila Manhattans. The Sal de Gusano gives the drink a slight salinity and a savory background note. I’ve seen a Black Cat recipe that included Old Tom Gin, Mezcal and grapefruit. So, never being reluctant to mess with recipes, we’ve come up with a version of Old Tom Gin/Mezcal Manhattan with the grapefruit aperitif, Caperitif.
For this cocktail, we have chosen Barr Hill Tom Cat Gin. This Old Tom
style gin is distilled with juniper as the only botanical, barrel aged in new American Oak, then sweetened with raw honey. The Mezcal we selected is Mezcalero No. 12, which was made from wild agave. Together they create a very pleasant cocktail. The nose is juniper with a touch of smoke and floral notes. The taste is juniper, honey, and a bit of wood. The finish is slightly sweet and savory.
Ingredients
- 1 oz. Barr Hill Tom Cat Gin
- 1 oz. Mezcalero Mezcal
- 1 oz. Sweet Vermouth – we used Dolin
- 1/4 oz. Caperitif
- 1 pinch sal de gusano
- Chill a cocktail glass with ice and water
- Combine all ingredients, except the sal de gusano, in a mixing glass with ice. Add the sal de gusano and stir to chill.
- Double strain into the chilled cocktail glass
Now for some spooky food
In the past we have prepared various Halloween themed foods: mozzarella “eyeballs”, “severed arms,” pot sticker “brains,” roasted “fingers” and meatloaf “coffins.”
Severed Arm
The “severed arm” was a meatloaf recipe with prosciutto “skin,” and tomato sauce “blood.” For the severed fingers, we used a meatball recipe, rolled them into finger sized logs and inserted sliced almonds for the “nails.”
Meatball logs with almond slivers for “nails”
We then used prosciutto for the “skin.”
Severed fingers with their “skin,” ready for the oven.
After roasting in the oven at 375 for 15 minutes, we put them on bamboo skewers and served them with marinara.
The meatloaf “coffins” are simply individual meatloaves shaved into a coffin shape:
