At The Daily Reveille, we love all things spooky. Leading up to Oct. 31, we wanted to help our readers prep for the holiday by taste-testing spooky cocktails to make for those Halloween gatherings.
We found four Halloween-inspired cocktail recipes and tested them out to see if they were as yummy as they were scary. Five people ranked each drink on a scale of 10 in five categories: taste, presentation, difficulty making, strength of alcohol and spookiness. The scores for each are the average of the five rankings. The cocktails were ranked as our team made them, including presentation and recipe modification. For the spookiness ranking, we considered how much the drink related to Halloween.
Purple People Eater Cocktail
We searched high and low for blue Curaçao and could not find it, so we tried replacing it. Our review may be a little skewed from not following the original recipe.
Modifications: We replaced blue Curaçao with Malibu (hence the lack of purple color). We used half as much grenadine as cranberry juice and added 1/3 cup of Sprite to every 1 cup of cocktail. Our review includes Sprite.
“I would definitely order this at Frinks and continue to get it.”
“This tastes like Malibu and Strawberry Fanta.”
Taste: 8.4/10
Presentation: 6.4/10
Difficulty making: Easy
Strength of alcohol: 6.0/10
Spookiness: 4.4/10
Black Cat Cocktail
This cocktail was easily our least favorite — probably due to some recipe changes. However, we found a way to turn it around: read how we changed it for something better below the review.
Modifications: We used vanilla Jim Beam and cherry Coca-Cola instead of cherry brandy from the original recipe.
“These are really nasty honestly, I wouldn’t recommend them to anybody.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“Maybe if we put them in these shot glasses, it’ll be easier to drink.”
Taste: 2/10
Presentation: 3.5/10 (for spiders)
Difficulty making: Medium
Strength of alcohol: 7/10
Spookiness: 1/10 (for spiders)
Try this instead: Stick to the classic. Jim Beam, cherry Coke and grenadine is the better alternative. We modified for a little over 1 ounce of Jim Beam, a little less than 1 ounce of grenadine, and fill rest of the cup with Coke.
Black Magic Margaritas
These dark, spooky margaritas are perfect for your inner witch. This margarita is for people who like a more tart or sour marg, not for those with a sweet tooth. Warning: it may turn your tongue black.
Modifications: We added 1/4 cup sweet and sour mix (not originally in recipe) and a little more triple sec than the recipe calls for.
“This tastes like an alcoholic Sour Patch Kid.”
Taste: 8.4/10
Presentation: 7.3/10
Difficulty making: Medium
Strength of alcohol: 7.8/10
Spookiness: 6.6/10
Note: We experimented with this one through trial and error — if you don’t have the time to get it just right, we recommend using margarita mix and adding food coloring to call it a day.
Sweet Poison Cocktail
This cocktail turned out much different than the original recipe, likely due to the absence of blue curacao. Heavily fruity and strong, people who like drinks with citrus fruit will like this.
Modifications: We put frozen pineapples in the drink instead of ice, used Malibu instead of blue Curaçao and added more fruit juice.
“Soak those chunks in vodka, call it breakfast.”
Taste: 6.4/10
Presentation: 5.5/10
Difficulty making: Medium (for freezer prep)
Strength of alcohol: 7/10
Spookiness: 1/10
Lauren Heffker, Ramsina Odisho, Taylor Oliver, Ha-Vy Nguyen, Brandon Adam and Lindsay Heffker contributed to this review.
