8 Halloween Garnish Ideas

As the nights close in, Halloween looms, and that gives you the perfect opportunity to make some of the best themed cocktails of the year. Hosting a haunted gathering? Want to get into the spirit at home? Or maybe you just want an excuse to knock up a cocktail? These Halloween garnish ideas are pretty easy to make but add the perfect chilling touch to your boo-zy potions.

Orange Peel Jack-o’-lanterns

Start your Halloween celebration with a burst of pumpkin-themed flair. Cut a small piece of orange peel, shape it into a classic wicked grin or a sinister face with a small, sharp knife, and clip it to the rim of your glass, or skewer it, or simply drop it in. Now, your beverage looks like it's sipping from its very own jack-o'-lantern.

Lychee Eyeballs

This is a classic because they look so good. Take a lychee and after removing the pit, insert a blueberry into its hollow centre. Add a few drops of red food colouring to give it that bloodshot look. Now, let your eerie eyeball float in your drink, watching your every sip. Or, if you want a more gruesome look, skewer the eyeball!

Strawberry Bloody Hearts

Add a dash of romance (or something much gorier) to your horror-themed drink with strawberry hearts. Simply slice strawberries into heart shapes and skewer them on toothpicks. You could also add some edible blood/dyed red syrup for extra special effects. Attach these crimson hearts to the rim of your glass, giving your drink a touch of macabre love.

Kiwi Frankenstein

Channel your inner mad scientist with a Kiwi Frankenstein. Slice a kiwi into thirds, preserving one part for its helmet-like-hair. Using cake decorations for eyes and a dash of black food colouring for a mouth, bring Frankenstein to life. Now for the bolts, which you can recreate by piercing with a cocktail stick.

Pineapple Bat Wings

Give your drink an eerie ambiance with pineapple bat wings. Carve out bat wing shapes from pineapple slices and perch them on your glass. It can be added to make tropical beverages adhere to the Halloween theme, but this sorts that right out.

Apple Witch Hats

Stir some witchy charm into your potion with apple witch hats. Grab a cookie cutter, ideally star shaped, and slice your apple in half. Attach these apple hat shapes to your glass, and you'll be spellbound.

Bloody Rim

This is another idea that’s so simple but effective. Dip the edge of your glass into a syrupy mixture dyed red with food colouring. Let it ooze and drip down the glass and for an extra touch of wickedness, add red or black sugar crystals to complete the look.

Spooky Spider Web

For an intricate and spooky garnish, use a spider web stencil to decorate your drink with ingredients such as cocoa powder, cinnamon, or powdered sugar. You could even try to make an Espresso Martini with cocoa powder web dusting and decorate the coffee bean garnish as a trapped fly!

But it’s not just garnishes where you can have spooktacular fun – pop these on our Easy Halloween Cocktails and you’ll blow guests away.

5 Easy Halloween Cocktails

With a good fancy dress costume, some spooky decorations and festive cocktails - a Halloween party is a sure fire success. Make sure your party is the one people keep talking about all year round with our excellent selection of Halloween cocktails that should keep the night rocking all the way into the witching hours!

 Dragon Blood Sangria

The Pinot Noir in this cocktail gives it the deep red colour that makes it just a little bit spooky… A big bowl of anything is a great idea at a Halloween party, as you can make it ahead of time and get it out of the fridge when everyone is ready to drink! It also means you don’t have to spend the whole evening in the kitchen, shaking or stirring away as everyone else does the Monster Mash (spoiler alert: it was a graveyard smash).

This recipe serves 8 but you can double or even triple the recipe for the number of guests you’re having/rounds you’ll be serving!

Ingredients (serves 8)
750ml Pinot Noir
60ml brandy
80ml raspberry liqueur
475ml cranberry juice
2 black plums cut into wedges
1 cup halved black grapes
1 cup blackberries
icing sugar to taste

Method
Add all ingredients into a large jug (or cauldron) and stir well. Taste the sangria, if it’s not sweet enough add 1-2 tablespoons of icing sugar. Let the sangria chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours. When ready to serve, ladle or pour into festive goblets!

Witch’s Brew

Over here at The Three Drinkers, we’re mad about colour changing gin. So mad, in fact, that we wrote a whole article about them! For this reason, and for their magical colour changing properties, we’re honouring them in a ‘Witch’s Brew’.  

However hard it is, don’t let anyone know that the gin is colour-changing beforehand, just say a few pseudo spells when pouring and watch as they are stunned at your mixology magic! The blue Curacao gives a beautiful ombre effect to this cocktail, one that will definitely get on some Instagram stories!

Ingredients
60ml colour changing gin
30ml lemon juice
30ml blue Curacao
raspberry hard seltzer 

Method
Fill a tall glass with crushed ice and add the blue Curacao and lemon juice. Make sure to do this in front of your guests, dramatically pour in the colour changing gin. Answer all the gasps with a knowing smile and top up with raspberry hard seltzer. Good job, you’re now officially the life of the party...

Zombie

The Zombie didn’t originate as a Halloween drink, but with that name and its amazing flavour, you know we couldn’t ignore this cocktail. The Zombie has been around since 1934, and the name supposedly comes from the hungover customer who requested the drink. Ouch! To make it a little more festive, we’ve added in some edible gold lustre dust to give it a beautiful shimmery quality and dazzle your guests.

Ingredients
25ml dark rum
25ml white rum
50ml lime juice
150ml pineapple juice
1tsp grenadine
½ tsp edible gold lustre dust
orange slice/maraschino cherry/sprig of mint garnish

Method
Pour all ingredients but the grenadine into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously until the outside of the shaker is icy. Strain into a tall glass with ice and slowly pour over the grenadine. Stir in the gold lustre dust and watch it swirl before garnishing with mint.

Pumpkin Spice Martini

The glory of the PSL (Pumpkin Spiced Latte) is back in town, with the famous syrup hitting every coffee shop on the high street. Bring some of those Autumn vibes inside with this Pumpkin Spice Martini that is perhaps more suited to a ‘chill’ Halloween party. However, don’t let that stop you from serving these any time of year (as long as you invite us)!

Don’t worry if you can’t find pumpkin spice syrup in a supermarket, it’s readily available online and not too expensive either. As it’s not alcoholic, you can also use this syrup in your coffee to make an at home PSL!  

Ingredients
60ml vanilla vodka
15ml cream liqueur
15ml Monin Pumpkin Spice Syrup
grated nutmeg 

Method
Add vodka and cream liqueur into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously until the shaker is icy. Grate nutmeg over the top for garnish and enjoy!

Find Monin Pumpkin Spice Syrup here: £10.25

Death in the Afternoon

The recipe for this bubbly green delight comes directly from Ernest Hemmingway himself. Yes, that’s right, in 1935 Hemmingway created this cocktail for a cocktail book with recipes from famous authors. How’s that for a fun fact! We’ve included his original instructions in our method so you can take it straight from the author!

But, why is this Halloween related…? Once you see this cocktail in action, you’ll know. The champagne bubbles mixing with the absinthe gives a wonderful, almost luminescent appearance to the cocktail that is reminiscent of an evil scientist’s lab! Spooky but also intellectual, ‘three to five’ of these sounds like a party in itself! 

Ingredients
45ml green absinthe
150ml Champagne 

Method
“Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.” Grab an Ernest Hemmingway novel (we’re thinking Death in the Afternoon) and enjoy!

Best Halloween Cocktail Garnishes

Don’t fancy any of the above? Did you know you can turn your favourite cocktail into a fun Halloween drink by spooking up the garnish? Here are some ideas to try below…

Pumpkin Garnish
Get an orange and cut a circular slice. Get an apple, cut a slither off it and chop it into a stick shape making sure to have the green bit on top. Insert the apple into the middle of your orange and voila you’ve made yourself a pumpkin garnish!

Skewered Eyeball Garnish
The perfect garnish for a Bloody Mary! Get a radish and cut a hole in the centre of it. Stick a stuffed olive in the radish and then put a skewer through it.

Bloody Eyeball Garnish
A great Halloween garnish for a Martini, take a lychee and cut a hole in it. Then, put a blueberry into the hole you have made in the lychee. Pour cherry juice over the top, pop it in your glass and you have a nice floating bloody eyeball!

If you’re looking for more gruesome articles to read, have a look at Could You Drink Dead People? and Whisky Infused with a Severed Toe, Anyone?