Alcoholist Yet another cocktail blog.

Don’t google “halloween cocktail” unless you have a strong stomach.

I played along with the whole holiday-themed adult beverage thing to take a drink to a friend’s Hallowe’en party Friday night, putting off what I was going to make to the last minute, which left me on the Internet poking around. My god, some of this stuff is awful. I mean, I know that cocktail recipes on the Internet are, by default, crap, but things have been getting better over the past few years. Still, when you start in on “seasonal”, all the cheap tricks come out of the woodwork. (And, mind you, even my friends are guilty of this.)

For one thing, I guess Blavod does their entire year’s business between 15 October and 2 November, because that’s in more of these questionable online specs than even pumpkin parts. Like, say, the Black Martini, or this trio (although Martha Stewart–who, let’s remember, did actually go visit Tom Chadwick at Dram, so she knows a thing or two–opts to avoid the brand repping).

Then, of course, there’s the “let’s pretend we’re drinking blood” approach, as with VeeV’s Bloody-tini (because the perfect thing to do with an açaí spirit is… add more açaí!), DonQ’s Bloody Rum Punch (which, actually doesn’t sound bad; I didn’t have any red wine around when I was looking for something to make), Finlandia’s Vampire Kiss Martini (no, that’s not a martini, but whatever), or Effen’s Dracula’s Kiss. Really, people, if you’re going to make something red, could you pretty please do it with something that’s not saccharine once in a fucking while? Like, I dunno, Campari?

And there’s more pumpkin than you can possibly want: the cleverly-titled Jack-O-Lantern (here’s another drink with the same name, completely different base, and the same pumpkin silliness), the even-more-cleverly-titled Jack-O-Tini, Leblon’s questionably-named Pumpkin Caipirinha, Skyy’s Pumpkin’s Passion, and on and on and on.

Some folks try to make something Halloweeny with a name and some gilding of their lily. This Halloween Cocktail combines mismatched elements (oj + whiskey + ginger ale? Pick a direction, dude) with the wrong garnish (olives? In a super-sweet drink?) with a misnomer (what you have there, sir, is a collins, not a cocktail). Well done! Witch’s Brew sounds positively revolting, but at least you can get a proper service for it. Not all of these suck, Bleeding Heart is a classic with an unexpected garnish twist that works really well.

I’m actually being a little bit unfair here: a non-trivial number of the drinks listed at the five buried links to lists up at the top actually sound pretty good. But I feel like being a crank, so hush.

Finally, I found a couple that I find interesting: CocktailDB’s Sleepy Hollow and (via Dave Wondrich’s Esquire column) a shooter from the now-defunct Chickenbone (now Dram, where several of my friends work, and where the aforementioned Martha Stewart visit took place): the Bone. I don’t have any Apricot liqueur at the moment, so I tweaked the latter into a punch (merely hinting at that punch part in the name). Measurements for 1 L (the volume of my surplus World War II poison bottles):

Bruised Bone
16 fl oz overproof whiskey (I used Grand-Dad Bonded)
1.5 fl oz absinthe (I used Vieux Carré, and I used 2 oz, which was a little too much)
3 fl oz lime juice
3 fl oz 1-1 simple syrup
10-20 dashes hot sauce (vary by taste and how hot your sauce is; I used Sriracha)
8 fl oz water (do NOT forget the water!)