Halloween Spirits

Halloween looms, and it’s time to start your party planning and looking at ways to impress your guests with creative and spooky libations.

Bartenders find that one of the most popular drinks among customers during jack-o’-lantern season is the bloody mary. This classic cocktail can easily be turned into a spooky Halloween drink. To make a bloody mary, mix tomato juice, vodka, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and lemon juice in a shaker with ice. Strain the mixture into a glass and add a celery stalk as a garnish. Then, to make it a little unnerving, add a few drops of red food coloring to create a truly bloody effect.

“Witch’s brew” combines gin — or vodka, if you prefer — and the beautiful color of blue curacao. To achieve a bone-chilling effect, pour blue curacao over crushed ice and lemon juice in a glass with a sugar-crusted rim. Next, add gin and soda water so the ingredients naturally layer. A splash of apple cider vinegar may be used instead of gin.

“Witch’s brew” combines gin — or vodka, if you prefer — and the beautiful Ty-D-Bol color of blue curacao. Photos by iStock / Getty Images Plus: Motortion

Using spooky glassware is a great way to add a Halloween vibe to your drinks. Serve cocktails in skull-shaped glasses or cauldron-shaped cups to add an eerie element. Even the classic martini or highball glass can be customized to creep people out. Candy garnishes are a fun and easy way to add a Halloween twist — anything from gummy worms to candy eyeballs or candy corn. Play around with berries, mint leaves and dried fruit.

Bartenders find that there is a lot of call for the bloody mary, always popular as a morning-after drink, during ghosts and goblins season. Photos by iStock / Getty Images Plus: yulka3ice

“I made a candy corn-infused vodka last year,” said a bartender at Ciao Bella in Bluewater Bay. “We served the drink as a shot or on ice in a mason jar with a jack-o’-lantern face on it. The drink came out the perfect pumpkin orange.”

Bartenders and imbibers may disagree about whether dry ice changes the taste of a drink. Most prefer to simply add a small piece of dry ice to the drink and watch as it creates a foggy effect. Remember to never touch the dry ice with your bare hands or eat it. Begin sipping after the fog dissipates and the ice has evaporated.

A “poison apple” cocktail usually contains an apple and cinnamon flavored liqueur, a base liquor like vodka or white rum and black food coloring as a finishing touch that produces the terrifying poisoned appearance. Apple cider vinegar may be used instead of an apple flavored alcoholic beverage and may add an extra kick to the potion. Consider bloodying the rim of your glass by dipping it in red liquid food coloring.

“For Halloween, you can hit the spooky notes by dropping in some dry ice and giving drinks a witch’s cauldron effect,” advises Corey Jordan, a bartender at Shades Bar & Grill on 30A. Photos by iStock / Getty Images Plus: Cristina Alexe

“For Halloween, you can hit the spooky notes by dropping some dry ice in and giving a drink the ‘witch’s cauldron’ effect as it bubbles and smokes,” said Corey Jordan, bartender at Shades Bar & Grill on 30A. “I also like to use charcoal, as it’s great for turning drinks black in small doses. That’s a cool mind effect — have a berry- or citrus-forward drink, but it’s black in color. There are also some cool edible glitters out there that you can use to mimic blood or create green or orange poison-pumpkin potions!”

An easy way to make a ghostly white Russian is to mix together vodka, Kahlua and heavy cream in a shaker with ice. Strain the mixture into a glass and garnish with a ghost-shaped marshmallow.

Halloween is the perfect time to get creative with your drinks. Even the craziest concoction you can think of stands a ghost of a chance.

Blueberry Lychee Eyeball Cocktail. Photo by iStock / Getty Images Plus: Azurita

Blueberry Lychee Eyeball Cocktail

Ingredients

• 2 cans lychee fruit, reserve the juice
• Fresh blueberries
• 8 cocktail skewers
• 1 ½ cups vodka (or gin)
• 3 ¼ cups blueberry juice cocktail, divided
• 1 cup lychee juice
• ⅓ cup lemon juice
• 1 ½ cups club soda

Directions

Drain the lychees and reserve the juice. Stuff one blueberry into the hole of 16 lychee fruits. Place them into a shallow bowl. Pour ¼ cup blueberry juice over the lychees and toss to coat each fruit in the blueberry juice. Set aside. In a large pitcher, combine the vodka, blueberry juice, lychee juice, lemon juice and club soda. Fill 8 cocktail glasses with ice. Pour the cocktail mixture over the ice. Thread two stuffed lychee fruits onto the cocktail skewers. Lay the skewers over the cocktail so it looks like eyeballs. Enjoy!