Halloween Brings a Round of Cocktail Recipes Aimed at Home Mixologists

Adults planning Halloween gatherings this weekend can mix drinks at home rather than buy them. Recipes circulating this week call for spirits including tequila, gin, rum, bourbon and smoked agave, along with ingredients such as pumpkin puree, espresso, papaya and blackberry syrup.

One recipe, called Wicked Potion, combines Middle West Spirits Vim & Petal Gin with crème de violette, Genepy, lemon juice and butterfly pea flower infused simple syrup. The method calls for shaking the mixture hard with ice, double straining it into a chilled coupe and optionally rimming the glass with purple sugar. A dash of lavender bitters is listed as optional.

The Late Night Margarita pairs 60 ml of Fluère Smoked Agave with 20 ml of fresh lime juice, 10 ml of simple syrup and 20 ml of Bols Triple Sec, shaken and strained into a glass with a dehydrated lime wheel. Persephone takes a different route, mixing 1.5 oz of False River Dark Rum with lemon juice, grenadine, blackberry Reàl syrup, ginger Reàl syrup and ginger beer, served in a mule mug over crushed ice with a skewered Luxardo cherry.

A fall tequila drink called Buenos Días draws on Tequila Don Julio 70 Añejo Cristalino alongside an añejo that has been fat-washed with marigold butter, plus papaya cordial, Pedro Ximénez sherry, Fino sherry and Italian amaro or Aperol. The recipe offers an alternative using papaya infused with Don Julio Añejo. That infusion sits sealed at room temperature for 24 hours before straining through a coffee filter. The drink comes from Bar Mauro, which the source identifies as Mexico's No. 1 bar by World's Best Bars.

Two other recipes center on Chrome Horse Society Blanco. Chrome After Dark mixes it with lime juice and agave syrup over ice. Dark Horse Martini combines it with espresso, coffee liqueur and agave nectar, shaken until a thick froth forms, then double strained into a coupe glass chilled for 10 minutes and topped with three espresso beans.

The remaining recipes include a Blue Blood built on Pantalones Reposado, Harmony Gin, Origen Vodka, blue curaçao, lime juice, honey syrup and chili tincture, served on the rocks with a salted rim, and a Pumpkin Pie Martini rimmed with chocolate ganache and graham cracker crumbs, containing Jeptha Creed Wheated Bourbon, black walnut bitters, egg white, spiced simple syrup and pumpkin puree. The source lists no quantities for the Blue Blood's club soda or for the egg white in the Pumpkin Pie Martini beyond one ounce.