Happy Halloween Weekend! Here at Umbra, we are big fans of the season. Between the costumes, the candy, the great reads, it’s a blast! One thing we are particularly fond of are the festivities. One thing we really enjoy are the Halloween parties. Unfortunately, there will be no party for us this year, but that hasn’t stopped us from compiling some of our favorite Halloween drinks. We hope you enjoy, and remember, drink responsibly.
Dracula’s Kiss
You can’t have Halloween without vampires. This drink is inspired by the most famous vampire, Dracula, created by Bram Stoker. What are vampires known for drinking? Luckily, us mortals don’t need to drink blood to survive. However, we do like to enjoy a more fun kind of drink. This drink is the perfect fruity drink that matches that nice blood red color. Whether you are going as a vampire this year, or some other blood drinking monster, you have to have one.
We at Umbra Ex Libris often do not measure our drinks. We pour from the heart. Some people like stronger drinks, others less strong. To each their own. For Dracula’s kiss you will need 1-3 shots of vodka for the alcohol, depending on your taste. The mixers are pink cranberry juice, black cherry juice, about a shot of grenadine, and a squirt of lime juice. Also listed below are the ingredients for your convenience. My only recommendation in the ingredients is to use twice the amount of cranberry juice as black cherry juice. If this is a party drink, I would recommend adding those fake plastic vampire teeth on top for a garnish. Who doesn’t love vampire teeth party favors?
- Vodka
- Pink Cranberry Juice
- Black cherry juice
- Grenadine
- Lime juice
- Vampire Teeth (optional)
The Frankenstein
This drink, like the Dracula’s kiss, uses a fun party favor as a drink topper. This drink’s inspiration comes from another well known science fiction book, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Imagine, if you will, you decide to build your very own monster. Aside from a brain, the eyes might be the most important part of the monster. Mismatched colors add even more character to your Build-A-Monster. Who knows where you managed to get the eyes, but by George, you are using them in your monster building.
Perhaps the most important ingredient in this drink is the blue curacao. Blue curacao tastes pretty good, but most importantly, it’s how we make our drink a beautiful blue color. For hard alcohol, once again, add 1-3 shots of vodka based on your preferences. Peach schnapps gives it a nice fruity flavor. If you’re like us, we like our mixed drinks on the sweeter side so we use sprite. Otherwise you can use seltzer and lime juice to eliminate those sugars. This drink tastes great and is a must for any Halloween party.
- Vodka
- Peach Schnapps
- Blue Curacao
- Sprite
- Eyeball party favor topper (optional)
The Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving is a unique piece of literature. Oftentimes, older works in the modern world are not as popular as popular media. This story is another classic staple that is as famous as other modern counterparts. Everyone knows about the headless horseman carrying around a pumpkin for a head. This drink is inspired by that pumpkin head. The bright orange color represents the pumpkin carried by the headless horseman.
I absolutely love this drink. I think this Halloween season, I’ve enjoyed at least five of them. If you’ve followed our page for awhile now, you know we love whipped cream vodka, especially in butterbeer. This drink uses that as its alcohol. You can also use vanilla vodka as a substitute. To get the orange color use a can of orange soda; we used Fanta. If you want it as a dessert or just a thicker texture add some vanilla ice cream. Top it off with whipped cream and sprinkles and enjoy!
- Whipped cream vodka
- Orange Soda
- Whipped cream
- Sprinkles
- Ice Cream (optional)
The Monster Smash
The stereotypical monster or alien I have in my mind is green. You have characters like the Martian aliens or Godzilla, these wonderful green monsters. When I think green monsters I think about comic books, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing or Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk. Lesser known, I also think about Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series. I’m unsure if her tentacled aliens she wrote about were green, but when I read that series I imagined them that way. This drink goes out to all the best green monsters out there. Which monsters do you think of?
This drink is another delicious fruity drink. It uses Pineapple juice along with sprite as its base mixed with the melon flavor of Midori. This drink uses three alcohols in it: rum, midori, and blue curacao. This makes it stronger yet still great tasting. If you use Maraschino cherries, you can imagine them as the green monster’s guts, or even used as eye balls. This one is bound to be a hit at your Halloween party.
- Pineapple juice
- Rum
- Midori
- Blue Curacao
- Sprite
- Maraschino cherries (optional)
Poe’s Misfortune
I personally love the color black. However, black brings a sense of bleakness, death, and depression to the mind. This drink isn’t so much inspired by a specific work but more a specific author. Edgar Allen Poe, wrote some of the best frightening short stories of his time. I can picture him sitting at a bar drinking a pitch black martini and writing works like, Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, and The Cask of Amontillado. Poe is everything the perfect Halloween should strive for.
This is the strongest drink on the list and is not for the faint of heart. It is a sipping drink not a chugging drink. When we made these, Roxy was not a fan. To make this drink, you unfortunately have to cheat to get the perfect color, otherwise you end up with a more windex blue color. Equal drops of red, green, and blue food coloring is required to get the black color. Vodka and Raspberry liqueur is the base of the drink. Add simple syrup and lime juice to taste. By taste varies for everyone, especially on a drink like this that is mostly alcohol. This pure black drink is sure to bring out your spooky side this season.
- Vodka
- Raspberry Liqueur
- Simple Syrup
- Lime Juice
The Red Rum
Jonas recently wrote a review for Dr. Sleep by Stephen King, the sequel to The Shining. Throughout The Shining Danny is haunted by the image of “redrum” scrawled across a wall in the hotel. With his dad being an alcoholic, Danny assumes its somehow related to his father. It’s not until later in the story when Danny realizes he’s been looking at a mirror image, and the true word is much more haunting.
This drink is essentially a Mai Tia, but with blood orange to make it a little more spooky. You will use a three to one ratio of white rum and orange juice. The original Mai Tai uses orgeat syrup. We are big fans of amaretto which has a rich almond flavor while also adding the alcohol we miss by not using orange curacao. However, feel free to use either in your own concoction. Use a little less than one tablespoon of amaretto or a full tablespoon of orgeat syrup. Add in a tablespoon of lime juice (fresh or pre-squeezed) and top the drink with a splash of dark rum to float on the top. Serve with a slice of blood orange and you are ready to go.
- White Rum
- Amertto
- Fresh Squeezed Blood orange juice (or just regular orange juice)
- Lime Juice
- Blood Orange round
- Dark Rum
The Witch’s Brew
Here at Umbra Ex Libris, we enjoy a good story about witches. From childhood we have the classic Roald Dahl story, The Witches. Taking it back to 10th grade English, we have the classic trio of witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In modern literature we have witches galore, from Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, also a hit TV series, to The Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan. These are all stories to enjoy and this drink represents the mysterious, sometimes deadly, concoctions they are all famous for brewing.
Jonas and I made this very drink for one of our Halloween parties and it was a hit. The trick was adding some edible glitter to the blackberry syrup. This made the drink look totally enchanting. The swirl of glitter made the drink feel magical. For this drink, the important thing to remember is using equal parts brandy, vodka and grenadine. Then three times that for the syrup. Top off with your lemon lime soda, we always choose Sprite, and you will have a very magical drink for the evening.
- Apple Brandy
- Vanilla Vodka
- Grenadine
- Blackberry Syrup (1.5 cups water: 3 cups sugar)
- Sprite
For the Blackberry Syrup you will want to essentially make a simple syrup. For this use 1.5 cups of water to every 3 cups of sugar. Then you can boil it down with 2 cups of frozen blackberries. Don’t forget to add your edible glitter. We used purple luster dust, which you can find at most craft stores that have a baking section. You can swirl that in at the end once the blackberries have been cooked down and drained out.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoy some of these at your own Halloween parties. What are some of your favorite cocktails or mocktails? How are you celebrating Halloween this year? Let us know in the comments of over on our Instagram! Whatever you choose to do, we hope you have a safe, enjoyable time. Once again, remember to drink responsibly and have fun.
Oh, and as always, happy spooky reading!