Last Minute Halloween Treats: Glowing Cocktails
The secret to creating glowing cocktails is simply tonic water. The quinine in tonic water, which gives it it’s bitter flavoring also gives it a florescent glow when placed under UV lights. It is the perfect ghostly-glow for a Halloween themed cocktail. A simple gin or vodka and tonic will do the trick or try some of my favorite glowing cocktails for a spectacular Halloween treat!
Florescent Punch
In order to make punch florescent, you need to use at least 50% tonic water for the recipe. To balance the bitterness, I mix it with pineapple juice, tripple sec (for sweetness) and fresh lime juice. The spirit is up to you. I prefer Ketel One Vodka, but Don Julio Blanco Tequila works too!
To creep-it-up a notch, create glowing “severed hands” by freezing flat tonic water in latex gloves (w/o talc powder) to give the punch an extra-spooky look while keeping it cold. Make sure to place the punch bowl right underneath a couple of black lights to get the maximum glow.
INSTRUCTIONS
For the severed-hand ice cubes:
Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper and set aside. Fill 1 glove with about 1 1/2 cups of the flat tonic water. Squeeze out as much air as possible and close the opening of the glove tightly with a rubber band. Lay the glove flat on the prepared baking sheet and repeat with the second glove. Place in the freezer until solid, at least overnight. The severed hands will need to freeze overnight, so be sure to make them at least 1 day before you plan to serve the punch.
* Pro-tip: To quickly flatten the tonic water for the severed-hand ice cubes, place it in a container and agitate until bubbly. Repeat several times until almost no bubbles remain. Alternatively, pour it into a container, loosely cover, and let sit overnight at room temperature.
For the punch:
Place the Ketel One Vodka, Cointreau, lime juice, and pineapple juice in a 3-1/2-quart container and stir to combine. Refrigerate until chilled, about 2 to 3 hours.
When ready to serve the punch, remove the severed-hand ice cubes from the freezer. Let it sit about 3 to 5 minutes at room temperature to help loosen the rubber gloves. Meanwhile, add the tonic to the punch mixture and gently stir to combine. Cut away and discard the rubber gloves (use extra care around the fingers). Place the ice-cube hands in the punch and serve underneath black lights.
Glow Jell-O
Jell-O is an American desert classic and Jell-O shots are nothing new… BUT Glow Jell-O is truly out-of-this-world! It’s not a trick, but tonic that makes the Jell-O glow. It is a simple recipe that replaces cold water with cold tonic (with bubbles) that makes is glow under UV light (aka black light). Adding a clear spirit to make adult version of Glow Jell-O!
Ingredients
1 package of Island Pineapple Jell-O
1 cup Ketel One Vodka (you can substitute extra tonic for the vodka if you want to make non-alcohol)
Juice of 1 large lime
1 cup tonic water (chilled before use, if possible)
8 lime slices, to garnish (optional)
Instructions
Pour the Jell-O into a large heatproof bowl. Pour 1/2 cup of vodka over the gelatin and leave for a few minutes so the gelatin dissolves. Put the bowl in a microwave and heat on high power for 1½ minutes and stir until the gelatin has completely dissolved. Don’t let it boil.
Stir the remaining vodka and the lemon juice into the gelatin, then add the chilled tonic water, pouring it in as carefully as you can to keep it from fizzing (you want to lock in all those bubbles).
*Pro-tip: If you are using non-silicon molds, lightly grease them inside using vegetable oil on a piece of paper towels. Silicone molds don’t need greasing.
Pour the mixture, equally carefully, into your gelatin molds or glasses, garnish with lemon slices, if using, and place in the fridge to set for about 6 hours.
Serve under UV light. The darker it is, the better the effect, so serve at night, with the lights turned out and the UV bulb as close to the Jell-O as possible!
Use fun molds like these bat ice cube trays to make the Glow Jell-O more fun!
Halloween Downloadables
While planning setting up the bar and buffet table at your next Halloween Party, incorporate these creative and fun Bottle Labels and Tombstone Tent Cards. These create an interesting theme to capture your guests attention, allowing them to concoct their own Mad Scientist Cocktail and pick through the graveyard of yummy food!
I used these RADIOACTIVE RUNOFF and PLUTONIUM ELIXIR labels for The Mad Scientist Bar segment which was featured on Better TV. I removed the manufacturer’s labels from liquors, mixers, and wine and added these fun, toxic labels to the bottles.
You can also add them to jars and canisters of garnishes. Print these images on 8.5″x11″ label paper, cut them out and adhere them to the bottles.
I used these Tombstone Tent Cards during another Halloween segment on Better TV. These cute tent cards can be printed at home on card stock paper using your home printer and are easy to cut out and assemble.The Tombstone Tent Cards are a great way to label the food and drinks on the bar or buffet table at your party.
All you have to do is print, cut, fold, and label!
Click here to download the Bottle Labels and Tombstone Tent Cards!
Like us on Facebook for exclusive design and entertaining tips, tricks, tactics, and more!
Halloween Fun: Mad Scientist Bar
Halloween is by far one of my favorite holidays for throwing parties – Halloween Parties are all about creating entertaining spaces that are as much about setting the stage and putting on a show. Which, by the way we should be doing throughout the year –minus trying to scare and gross-out our guests!
I am fascinated with mixology and I am known for my WOW tables; so as a frightful focal point to my Halloween party I created a WOW bar, The Mad Scientist Bar. (evil laugh)
[Watch my Mad Scientist Bar on Better!]
I’ve used some everyday items, classics beverages and foods, along with some of my Hollywood-style special effects to create a laboratory entertaining space. Put on your lab coat and goggles and follow along as I show to make creepy concoctions and powerful potions that will surely be a scream at any Halloween party.
Mad Scientists collect all kinds of specimens to do their experiments on. With that inspiration, I created Specimen Punch. This is a lot of fun to put together and I am using a three-tier beverage jar with a spout. In my first tier are my specimens – guts and a brain glowing in a purple Formaldehyde (cauliflower, cellophane noodles and glow lights in purple colored water). For the punch in the center of the tier I have frozen cadaver hands keeping the Radio Active Punch frightfully chilled (colored water frozen in latex gloves). Finally on top, I have a collection of nasty, but tasty gummy bugs, worms and eyeballs to garnish each drink with! A mad Scientist Bar would be complete with out specimen jars of failed experiments (canning jars filled with everyday food items in colored water; boiled eggs, white asparagus, cooked spaghetti, mushrooms, ginger roots.)
Halloween doesn’t always have to be scary or gross… it can be down right manipulative as well (another evil laugh)! To create my Secret Potions… I took the essence of classic champagne and wine, and boiled them down in to liquid spells that with a little dropper full, transforms these mild mannered glasses of champagne and wine into liquid spells for infatuation, mind control and sedation.
These cocktails are based of iconic cocktails that I dissected down to the very essence, then recombined them, fortified and more powerful then ever to create The Antidote! – I have found the cure to a boring Halloween Party. With the Antidote, I can transform these unsuspecting glasses of soda water, ginger ale and orange juice into new creations – The Cape Fear, Creepy Old Man and Ta-Kill-Ya Sunset!
I’ve taken my signature Alien Secretion cocktail created for this year’s Oscars and recalculated composition to turn them into cocktails that are truly out of this world for Halloween. These three unique cocktails have pose an very interesting dilemma when drinking… you have to eat the Alien Skin (flavored gelatin discs) off of the top in order to access the secretion below; classic alien secretion, galactic serpent, Martian sunrise!
Find more great ideas for a killer Halloween party here.
Recipes for Mad Scientist Bar below…
Specimen Punch
· 1 part Midori Melon Liqueur
· 1 part Dark Rum
· 1 part Light Rum
· 2 part White Cranberry Juice
· 1 part Unfiltered Apple Juice
· 1 part Simple Syrup
- Ice Hands – To Make Frozen Hand:
Add food color to water until you reach desired color. Fill glove with water, fastening end with a twist tie or rubber band. Hang glove from a shelf in the freezer and freeze overnight. When frozen, pull glove from ice and place “hand” in the punch.
Antidote Shots (Syringes) – Deconstructed Cocktails
- Cape Fear – Cranberry Juice, Vodka & triple sec
- After Midnight – Black Vodka & Pomegranate Juice
- Alien Secretion – Melon liquor, Pineapple & Rum
- Creepy Old Man – Burbon, dash of vanilla, triple sec
- Ta-Kill-Ya Sunset – Tequila, triple sec & Grenadine
- Gin Ricketts – Gin & Lime Juice
MIXERS – Soda Water, Tonic Water, White Cranberry Juice, White Grape Juice, Ginger Ale, lemon lime soda
Secret Potions (Medicine Jars w/ Droppers)
- Infatuation – Pom Juice & Eldeflower Liquor
- Revenge – Brandy & 151 rum, pineapple juice
- Mind Eraser – cognac, triple sec
- Sedation – lavender infused gin, lime juice, simple syrup
- Adrenaline – pear vodka, pear puree
Hallo-Tinis
- Bloody Cosmo
- White Cosmo w/ strawberry glazed rim
- Orange vodka
- White cranberry juice
- Triple sec
- Lime juice
- White Cosmo w/ strawberry glazed rim
- Black Magic
- Black cosmo w/ dark kayro syrup & orange sugar rim
- Blavod Black Vodka
- Pomegranate juice
- Triple sec
- Lime juice
- Black cosmo w/ dark kayro syrup & orange sugar rim
- Poison Apple
- Spike cider with caramel rim
- Apple Vodka
- Hard Apple Cider
- Goldshalager
- Spike cider with caramel rim
