Halloween drinks and party tips

Whether you’re planning to throw a Halloween party or not, there are some great Halloween cocktails to make part of your spooky night. Unlike other holidays which have traditional cocktails attached to them (i.e., eggnog for Christmas), Halloween is more associated with spooky punches and so on. But here’s a very important tip for making your Halloween cocktails memorable: it’s not so much the drink as the presentation. If you can make a gimlet look spooky, it’s a Halloween drink – cheers.

Presentation

Spookifying ordinary cocktails is pretty simple. First, consider what you serve them in. Skittles Vodka is kind of spooky looking to begin with, but serve it in spooky lab flasks or potion bottles and you’ve got a memorable Halloween theme. Use gummy worms, eyeballs or anything else spooky in our Vodka Gummy Bears tutorial, and you’ve got a gross, creepy treat for everyone to dip their hands into.

And serve drinks with lots of tonic water as an ingredient, then use a black light. Tonic water reacts and glows in blacklight, so the drinks will look fluorescent.

Or try serving from a drink dispenser that looks like a drip bag from the hospital.

Color some sugar black or orange with food coloring and use that to rim your guests’ glasses.

Layer any kind of black vodka on top of any kind of fruit juice (cranberry or tomato for the bloody look, orange juice for Halloween colors), and you’ve got a weird spooky-looking drink.

Suggested Cocktails

1. For a punch, try Witch’s Brew. There’s also a dry ice version of this punch which will totally spook people.
2. The Ichabod Crane is delicious. The grossness factor may not be quite up to your Halloween standards, but the flavor and name sure are.
3. Garlic Martinis are just like regular martinis, except with garlic-stuffed olives to keep vampires at bay.
4. Ditto on the Ogre Drink. Coconut rum, coke and ice cream. It’s very bit as delicious as it sounds. Sure, maybe there’s nothing Halloween about it except the name, but no one will have a problem with that.
5. …and the Garnet Crow, which is nearly black and deliciously darkly mysterious. Perfect if you’re going for more of a chic or Edgar Allen Poe feel for a party, as opposed to a gross-out fest.
6. The Bayou Slime looks gross, tastes great. Sort of a Mojito with froth… which sounds like it ought to be a Halloween monster of some sort.
7. Did the suggestion of a spooky Gimlet intrigue you? Here’s a recipe for a Swamp Demon, a gimlet with lime marmalade. It looks all slimy and gross.

If you’re looking for more grown-up suggestions for Halloween drinks, check out our fall-themed Thanksgiving recipes. None of them are gross or named after monsters – they just taste good and have an autumn feel to them.