Halloween cocktail recipes: Five to try this spooky season
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Spooky season is in full swing. And whether you’re planning on throwing a Halloween party or having a cozy night in after some trick or treating, odds are, you’re going to want a cocktail.
We’ve scoured the internet for some of the spookiest cocktail recipes we could find. Some are more complicated than others, but most are fairly simple, not to mention tasty and thematically appropriate.
Best of all, our favorite of the bunch – it’s last on our list – has a final Halloween-y touch that can be used to transform a simple non-alcoholic beer into a festive spooky beverage.
Read on for our picks!
Smoky Apple Cider Margarita
No list of autumnal sips would be complete without an apple cocktail! If you want a straightforward, two-ingredient situation, bourbon and apple cider is a can’t-miss combination. But for something more unexpected, consider this smoky mezcal cocktail with rosemary, maple, citrus and more. Cozy and cool all at once! For a spooky touch, serve out of a cauldron, garnish with candy corn on a cocktail skewer or peel and slice an apple into wedges and call them ears.
Bloody Mary Syringes or Test Tubes
This one is all about the presentation, but unlike many visually daring cocktails, it’s not complicated to make. Simply whip up a batch of bloody marys (or bourbon bloody marys, our favorite variation on the classic brunch cocktail). Then you just fill drink-ready syringes or test tubes (both available in bulk from places like Amazon for a reasonable price) with the cocktail and you’re good to go! If the novelty of the delivery mechanism wears off, a bloody mary in a glass is still a blood-red cocktail with a spooky name.
Hocus Pocus Cocktail
We love an herbal cocktail almost as much as we love watching the Sanderson Sisters menace plucky youngsters! And this cocktail from The Flavor Bender scratches both of those itches, since it’s meant to look like the "life force" potion from the classic ‘90s Disney film. Using jalapeno-infused tequila as a base, this vivid green beverage has a grown-up flavor profile at odds with its day-glo hue. Best of all, The Flavor Bender includes numerous variations – if you can’t find an ingredient, they list substitutions, and if you want to make this a fizz or a punch (for a big group) instead, they also have that covered. It’ll put a spell on you.
Black Light Cocktail
This is perhaps the simplest cocktail on our list, and it comes from country legend Trisha Yearwood! What makes this Black Light Cocktail special is that it uses a little-known feature of a common cocktail ingredient to elevate an otherwise straightforward (if tasty) beverage to spooky heights. Did you know tonic glows under black light? Neither did we! But it does, so Trisha’s tonic-filled ice cubes (use fun, spooky ice cube trays for maximum effect) and vodka/tonic/white grape juice concoction is best served in an environment in which it can glow. (And since tonic is alcohol-free, this is a drink easily converted to non-alcoholic status.)
Jack-O-Lantern Cocktail
At last, we arrive at our favorite! Like the Black Light Cocktail and the syringes, this is really all about the presentation, though the cocktail itself is also plenty tasty. But the finishing touch is so clever that it can be used with any orange or yellow beverage to instantly turn the drink in question – orange juice, a mimosa, a beer or N/A beer, orange soda, the list goes on – into a spooky season celebratory drink.
For the cocktail, you combine brandy, cognac, orange juice and ginger ale. Yum. But the magic touch is so simple: take a thin but substantial slice of orange, skewer it in the center with a lime twist (the peel of a lime cut thin and twisted), and voila, you’ve got the top of a jack-o-lantern. It’s a magical flourish we’re excited to use in our own celebrations this year, for Halloween and Thanksgiving!