Halloween is less than a week away, so party plans have been made, costumes have been concocted and ideas are flying around friendship groups everywhere of what to be, where to celebrate, and certainly how to turn our every day homes or venues into creepy Halloween dungeons for the evening. Welcome to Halloween on Twisted Beauty...
Cocktails make Halloween for me as a fantastic way to brew together some really creative, tasty concoctions to drink with your friends and family. It's not about getting drunk, it's about enjoying something really yummy on a spooky evening filled with all things weird and wonderful. It's so easy to make a non-alcoholic version of this cocktail as well by just substituting the alcoholic elements for blackberry, cranberry and elderflower juices.
This 'Witches Brew' is so easy to make and tastes absolutely amazing, with a sharp blackberry taste and a sweet after taste. It's not a cocktail which has a strong alcoholic taste, which is my favourite sort as they are so much more enjoyable (for me personally) to drink. I LOVE fruity cocktails, and Gin - so this cocktail concoction has all my favourite drink related things. I found a similar cocktail recipe to this on Pinterest the Mr Hyde Potion...which inspired this drink, but I have loved creating this cocktail from scratch with all my favourite flavours!
What I used to brew my potion (for one 1ltr jug):
250g Frozen Blackberries
12-15 Fresh Blackberries
10-13 Fresh Raspberries
Lemonade (can vary in volume)
50ml Hendrick's Gin
60ml Tipsy Tart Raspberry Liqueur
25ml Blackberry & Elderflower Pimm's
1tbsp Caster Sugar
Fresh Rosemary Sprigs (as many as you have glasses)
1tsp Fresh Rosemary
1tsp Fresh Mint
Step 1 > Blitz your ingredients
Add your frozen blackberries, rosemary and mint to a blender and blend on a high speed for about two minutes until smoothie consistency.
Step 2 > Smooth out your mixture
Using a muslin cloth or small holed sieve, and push through until you are left with a blackberry mixture with minimal pips. Add your gin, 50ml of the raspberry liqueur and Pimm's into your mixture and stir with a cocktail stirrer (or a straw if you are as ill equipped as me in the barman-ship department).
Step 3 > Make your sugar
Lay out your sugar onto a plate and add the remaining 10ml of raspberry liqueur. Dependent on how strong and deeply coloured a liqueur you are using, the sugar colour may differ slightly. I was using an amazing liqueur from Tipsy Tart. Turn your glasses upside down and swizzle them around in the sugar until you have a nice sugary rim.
Step 4 > Finish off and serve
Pour your cocktail mixture into a serving jug and top up slowly with lemonade. By adding lemonade to the cocktail, this will react with the fruit and cause a long lasting bubbly effect on the top of your drink which looks amazing for Halloween. If you don't want this effect as much, add your mixture to chilled lemonade pre-poured into your jug and add slowly as opposed to adding lemonade to the cocktail mix. Finish off decorating your cocktails in your jug however you wish - I put a ring of alternating fresh blackberries and raspberries around the top. For the glasses, I pierced fresh blackberries and raspberries with a string of rosemary which I had removed all but the tip of leaves off and laid them across my glasses.
And that's it! As simple as that. These cocktails took me about ten minutes to make from start to finish. They are so easy to make, and the fresh fruit element in them means that the mixture is really easy to freeze to make into frozen cocktails in the Summer as well! Let me know what your favourite Halloween drink is in the comments below and don't forget to share any pictures of cocktails you have made for Halloween with me on Twitter!
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