Halloween Bloody Marys to spice up the party

Halloweekend is upon us. Still looking for the perfect drink for your Halloween party? Never fear, we're here to help you shake it up in bloody style!

Make your Bloody Mary extra-special this Halloween by adding homemade garnishes for a spooky touch.
Make your Bloody Mary extra-special this Halloween by adding homemade garnishes for a spooky touch.  © Collage: Unsplash/Sašo Tušar & Klara Kulikova

You may be thinking that serving Bloody Marys during spooky season is a bit cliché, but when you pump them up with deceptively real-looking witch's fingers and a googly eye, no one can accuse you of not having gone that extra mile.

And as the season is all about pumpkin, your guest may be glad for from the squash and cinnamon reprieve.

Shaking up a signature cocktail is the best way to liven up any party – even ones featuring the walking dead.

Aussie tat addict inks eyeballs despite previous blinding by eye tattoos
Tattoos Aussie tat addict inks eyeballs despite previous blinding by eye tattoos

Here's a Halloween-inspired Bloody Mary drink recipe that will have your guests shuddering with freight if they don't get their hands on one!

Halloween Bloody Mary recipe: Ingredients

This recipe uses purple carrots as fingers and almonds for fingernails, and it can just as easily be made with or without alcohol.

Ingredients for four drink servings:

- 150 ml tomato juice (can substitute or do half beetroot juice for a darker "blood" red flavoring)
- juice of one lemon
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp horseradish
- 1/2 tsp hot sauce (ex. chili sauce)
- 50 ml vodka
- celery stalk
- dash of salt
- fresh pepper
- ice cubes

For the spooky garnish of edible "fingers" and "googly eyes", you'll need:

- 4 wooden skewers
- 8 purple carrots
- 8 whole white almonds
- 1 tbsp. cream cheese
- 4 radishes and 4 blueberries
- 2 long stalks of celery
- a slice of lemon and 1 tbsp black sesame seeds for rim decoration

Hot Tip: You can substitute other add-ins to get creative, and instead of black sesame, garnish your rim with chili salt or pepper for an extra spicy kick.

You can spice up your Bloody Mary even more this spooky season by adding fun garnishes that look like fingers and eyeballs.
You can spice up your Bloody Mary even more this spooky season by adding fun garnishes that look like fingers and eyeballs.  © Unsplash/Toni Osmundson

Halloween Bloody Mary recipe: Instructions

To make the spooky garnish:

Wash and dry the carrots. They will become our witch's fingers and should be big enough to peek out of the glasses. When creating them, use your own fingers as a template for length and look.

Carve out space at the end of the carrot for a nail with a sharp knife. For the joints, cut out 3 thin folds 1 inch below the nail. Some 2 inches below these, cut out another 4, thicker, folds.

Peel the carrots between the nail and the upper folds to make them thinner. Repeat the same between the top and bottom folds.

Spread a little cream cheese on the nail bed and stick an almond on top as a nail.

Next, wash and dry the radishes to make the radish a "googly eye." Chop off the green stems and carve a small round hole in the place - it should be large and deep enough to hold a small blueberry.

Using a small knife, peel the radish so that "red blood veins" appear. The starting point of the veins is the hole, the blueberry will serve as the pupil. Insert it into the hollow and fix it with a small wooden skewer.

For rim decoration, moisten the rims of the glasses with a slice of lemon and dip in the black sesame seeds so that they stick to the rims. Place in the fridge.

Cut the celery stalks so that they are the same length as the carrots, and serve as a garnish on their own.

To make the cocktail:

Add the tomato/beetroot juice and lemon juices, Worcestershire sauce, horseradish, chili sauce, vodka, dash of salt, pepper, and ice cubes to a shaker. Shake well and pour into pre-chilled glasses and top with celery stalk, googly-eyed radishes, and homemade carrot fingers.

For an alcohol-free version, simply leave out the vodka.

With this impressive cocktail concoction and some Halloween treats, you're sure to stir up lots of "double, double, toil, and trouble."

Cover photo: Collage: Unsplash/Sašo Tušar & Klara Kulikova

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