Halloween may not be the biggest drinking day of the year (although that night, Thanksgiving Eve, is just a few weeks away), but it is a great time to get creative with your cocktail menus. Whether it's through creepy colors, fiendish flavors, or ghoulish garnishes, Halloween cocktails are a great way to provide your guests with an engaging, seasonal experience.

We've scared up a collection of Halloween cocktail recipes that are the perfect addition to your bar/restaurant's drinks menu.

 

halloween cocktail recipes
Photo & recipe: Dulce Vida Tequila

Graveyard Smash

Ingredients: 

1 oz Dulce Vida Reposado Tequila

1 oz Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice

1 oz Chareau Aloe Liqueur

1 oz Green Chartreuse

.25 oz Pineapple Juice

Garnishes: Dehydrated Pineapple Slice

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a shaker tin set, fill with ice, shake hard for 8 seconds. Double strain using a hawthorne and fine strainer into a coupe glass. Garnish and enjoy.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Recipe created by Erin Hayes & Kelsey Ramage (Photo & recipe: Black Lagoon)

Blood Rave

Ingredients: 

1.5 oz Montelobos

.5   oz Giffard Piment d'Espelette

.25 oz Beet Juice 

.75 oz Lime Juice 

.75 oz  Miso Falernum 

1 Dash Absinthe 

Directions:

Shake & Stain over cubed ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with a dehydrated lime wheel. 

 

halloween cocktail recipes
Recipe and photo: Maestro Dobel Tequila

Hellish Spirit

Ingredients:

2 oz Maestro Dobel Diamante

.75 oz Lemon Juice

.5 oz Simple Syrup

.25 oz Grenadine Syrup

Directions:

Fill a double old-fashioned glass with ice and pour drink over it. Top cocktail off with soda water and garnish with two chili peppers.

 

halloween cocktail recipes
Recipe & photo: Fresh Victor

Hallowed Sangría

Ingredients:

1.5oz Fresh Victor Lemon Sour

1oz sauvignon blanc

.5oz amontillado sherry

1.5oz vodka 

Garnish: sliced pears, sliced apples, pomegranate arils

 

Directions:

In a 10-12 oz wine glass full of ice, add all ingredients, stir gently, garnish and serve.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Photo & recipe: Kraken

Krak-O-Lantern

Ingredients: 

1 part Kraken® Black Spiced Rum

1/2 part Brown Sugar Syrup

1/4 part Allspice Dram

1 tbsp. Pumpkin Butter or Canned Pumpkin Pie Filling

Top with Hot Water

Directions:

Combine ingredients in a glass coffee mug. Top with hot water. Stir until pumpkin butter is incorporated. Garnish with grated cinnamon.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Recipe & photo: Four Roses Bourbon

Hot Apple Cider

Ingredients:

1 bottle (750 mil) Four Roses Bourbon

½ gallon Apple cider

5 Cinnamon sticks

3 Orange peels

30 Cloves

Garnish Cinnamon sticks

Directions:

Combine bourbon and apple cider in a crock pot and heat at a low setting for two hours. Heat a glass mug with hot water. Discard water. Fill the glass with Bourbon and cider mixture. Add cinnamon sticks, making sure that the liquid is not boiling. Peel sections of the oranges, and garnish each cocktail with a clove-studded orange peel. This recipe makes approximately 15, 6 oz servings.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Recipe & photo: Pink House Alchemy

Winter’s Bane

Ingredients:

2 oz Plymouth Gin⁠

.5 oz pH Ginger Syrup⁠

.5 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao⁠

1 egg white⁠

.25 oz fresh lemon juice⁠

Splash of Lemon La Croix ⁠

1/2 capsule of activated charcoal

Dehydrated blood orange slice

Directions:

Stir together gin, lemon, syrup, and empty the contents of a charcoal capsule. Strain onto fresh ice. ⁠Dry shake egg white and Curaçao - layer over the cocktail. ⁠Add a bit of Lemon La Croix Bubbles to raise the drink. ⁠Garnish with a dehydrated blood orange slice. ⁠

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Photo: Lee Corbett, @TheRogueBrusselSprout

Creepy Crawler

Ingredients:

1 large ripe avocado

1 tbsp Kōloa Kaua’i Cacao Rum

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp maple syrup

4 chocolate sandwich cookies

Gummy worms

Sprigs of fresh thyme

Directions:

In a mini food processor, combine the avocado, rum, cocoa powder, and maple syrup. Process until you achieve a thick, rich, completely homogeneous mousse, scraping down the sides as needed. Taste the pudding and adjust as you see fit; you can add a few more pinches of cocoa powder for additional chocolate flavor and/or another dash of maple syrup for additional sweetness. The amounts you need will depend on the size of your avocado, so feel free to tweak until you achieve a flavor and texture you love. Spoon the mousse into two small serving glasses or four shot glasses. Put the cookies in the food processor and pulse it until you achieve an even, crumbly texture. Spoon the cookie powder over the mousse in the serving glasses. Garnish the “dirt” with gummy worms and a few sprigs of fresh thyme.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Photo & recipe: The Katharine Brasserie & Bar, within Kimpton Cardinal Hotel, Winston-Salem, NC  

Witches Brew

Ingredients:  

1.5 oz Tito’s Vodka 

.5 oz Lemon Juice 

.5 oz Lavender Simple Syrup 

.25 oz Hibiscus Simple Syrup for color 

Directions:  

For the syrups, prepare Lavender Simple Syrup by adding 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of water and ½ cup of lavender to a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat and let simmer for a minute then remove from heat and let syrup steep and cool. Strain to remove the herbs. Follow the same process to prepare the Hibiscus Simple Syrup using 1/2 cup dried hibiscus instead of lavender. 

For the cocktail, shake all ingredients and strain into coupe. Smoke with oak chips using a smoking kit & serve. 

 

halloween cocktail recipes
Recipe & photo: Crystal Head Vodka

Red Hot Devil

Ingredients:

2 oz. Crystal Head Vodka

2 oz. Cranberry Juice

¾ oz. Chili Liqueur

Sparkling Blood Orange Juice

Directions:

In a sugar-rimmed highball glass with ice, add Crystal Head, cranberry juice, and chilli liqueur. Top with sparkling blood orange juice and stir for 5-10 seconds. Garnish with red chilli peppers on each side of the glass.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Photo & recipe: Twang

Monster Margarita

Ingredients:

Twang-A-Rita Black Salt

2 ounces of tequila

1 ounce melon liqueur

1 ounce lime juice

½ ounce agave syrup

Honeydew melon

Blueberries

Directions:

Rim your glass with Twang-A-Rita Black Salt. Fill serving glass with ice. In a cocktail shaker add tequila, melon liquor, lime juice and agave syrup. Shake for 10-15 seconds. To garnish, scoop small balls out of honeydew melon. Place a blueberry in the center of each melon ball to resemble an eyeball. Skewer the melon eyeballs onto a cocktail stick and enjoy!

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Photo & recipe: First Light 
Coffee Whiskey

Cafe de Sangre

Ingredients:

2 oz. First Light Coffee Whiskey

2 oz. House Made Vegan Cherry Horchata:

1 cup rice blended with cinnamon

2 cups water

2 cups milk (we used vanilla oat milk)

De-pitted cherries

Directions:

Blend all ingredients together and pour over ice in a tall glass.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Photo: Casey Bruce/Courtesy of The Perfect Purée. Recipe: Casey Bruce of Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch

Bunnicula’s Brew

Ingredients:

1 oz. Charbay R5 Lot 5 Whiskey

1 oz. Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA

½ oz. The Perfect Purée Blackberry Puree, thawed

1 oz. Long Meadow Ranch carrot juice

½ oz. Caraway infused Long Meadow Ranch honey

¼ oz. lemon juice

¼ oz. lime juice

Directions:

Add all to a shaker, fill halfway with ice, and shake vigorously. Strain into a coup and garnish with a carrot twist.

 

halloween cocktail recipe
Photo & recipe: PATRÓN EL ALTO for Heidi Klum

Heidi's Black Magic-Rita with PATRÓN EL ALTO

Ingredients:

2 oz PATRÓN EL ALTO

1 oz blackberry syrup

1 oz fresh lime juice

2 drops of Scrappy’s Fire Water Tincture 

Black lava salt

Directions:

For the blackberry syrup, in a small saucepan, mix one cup of sugar, one cup of water with five large blackberries. Simmer and let the sugar melt. Once the blackberries are soft, muddle them with the back of a spoon. Strain through a fine mesh strainer and let cool. 

For the sugar spider web garnish, combine 1 ¼  cups of sugar, ¼ cup of light corn syrup, and ¼ cup of water with muddled blackberries in a small saucepan. Start on low heat and periodically whisk to increase temperature. Using a candy thermometer, bring the mixture to 300 degrees. Place the saucepan in an ice bath and bring it down to 275 degrees. Using a fork, spin your cobweb design by drizzling the mixture over parchment in your desired shape.  

For the cocktail, in a shaker combine PATRÓN EL ALTO, blackberry syrup, lime juice, and ice and shake. Strain and pour over ice in a rocks glass with a black salt rim. Top with two drops of fire water tincture and a sugar spider web garnish. 

 

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