The Mark-a-rita
Makes 1 serving
Ingredients:
- 2 oz. Tequila Don Julio Reposado
- 0.5 oz. Triple Sec
- 1 oz. Orange Juice
- 1 oz. Grape Juice
- 1 oz. Lemon Juice
- 1 oz. Lime Juice
- Citrus Salt Rim
- Lemon and Lime as Garnish
Method:
- Garnish a rocks glass rim with salt.
- Combine tequila, triple, orange juice, grape juice, lemon juice, and lime juice in the glass.
- Garnish with a lemon and lime.
The Frankenstorm
Tonight is Halloween and NYC is definitely a creepy place to be tonight in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy! Halloween has seriously been impacted by the hurricane, with the cancellation of the 39th Annual Village Halloween Parade and countless events and parties. Can really do much when 20% of NYC is without power and without public transportation.
I created The Frankenstorm cocktail, which only seemed fitting for the situation here an all along the eastern seaboard. It is a modified Hurricane Punch (of course) with a bloody dripping rim. Green in color with a frothy head, the Frankenstorm looks like many New Yorkers feel tonight.
Happy Halloween to all and Cheers!
Ingredients
1 oz. Ketel One Vodka
1 oz. Blue Curacao
2 oz. Orange Juice
2 oz. Pineapple Juice
For the Rim:
Karo syrup colored with red food coloring
(dip glass rims in syrup and turn right-side up an allow to drip down the sides)
Garnishes:
green maraschino cherries
orange wedges
Instructions:
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add all of the ingredients. Shake vigorously to froth the pineapple juice and strain into an ice filled highball glass rimmed with sugar blood. Serve with a green maraschino cherry and an orange wedge.
Sleeping Potion
Serve in an all purpose glass
Ingredients:
- 2 oz Smirnoff Raspberry vodka
- 1 oz lime juice
- 1 oz fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1 orange curl
- 2 oz Soda Water
Method:
- Pour the vodka and lime juice into a shaker with ice
- Shake well and serve on the rocks
- Using a eye dropper, squeeze fresh squeezed orange juice from an apothecary jar into the vodka and lime juice for color and taste.
- Garnish with an orange curl
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Cape Ale
- 2 oz Ketel One Vodka
- 14 oz of Light Beer
- 2 oz Cranberry Juice
- 2 oz Orange Juice
- Garnish with a lime wedge
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Melon Mimosa
- 1/2 oz Melon Liqueur
- 1 oz Orange Juice
- 4 oz Barefoot Bubbly Brut Cuvee
- Splash Pineapple Juice
in a champagne flute, first add the melon liqueur then add the Barefoot Bubbly. Top off with orange juice and garnish with a slice of cantaloupe.
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Stewed Cranberry Punch
Starts similar to a favorite holiday side dish from which it derives its name.
(Servers 8 )
- 1 cup frozen cranberries
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup sugar
- 4 whole cloves
- 1 star anise
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 6 cups of orange juice
- ½ lime juice
- 8 oz Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum
Like classic cranberry sauce, begin with a small pot of cranberries, brown sugar, whole cloves, cinnamon sticks, star anise, cardamom pods and orange rind brought to a boil. Cool the mixture to room temperature before adding orange juice and a touch of limejuice – refrigerate overnight. To serve, strain the mixture into a punch bowl then garnish with whole cloves and cinnamon sticks. Freeze fresh cranberries and orange slices in a block of ice! For an added kick add a jigger of rum to each glass as served.
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1970′s Theme
The 1970′s have been known as The Disco Decade, the decade of peace signs and flower power! The Vietnam War dragged on into the seventies and war protests continued. However, on April 30th, 1975, the longest war in American history ended. Inflation and unemployment soared the later part of this decade. This decade is remembered for the Watergate Scandal and Vietnam War. The nation was desperate to find a leader to give confidence back to the people. It was a decade of hope and dreams!
During this time, Billy Bush was born on October 13th, 1971. During this time Billy was living in New York. His mother cooked dinner every night, so I was inspired to do some of the classic homemade dishes, Chicken Pot Pie and Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes, his mother served with a fun twist of making everything miniature. During the 70′s, the Creamsicle was a huge fad, so I used that to inspire the 70′s cocktail.
Mini Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes
Meat Loaf
Ingredients:
1 ½ cup finely chopped onion
1 celery rib, chopped fine
1 carrot, chopped fine
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. freshly ground pepper
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ cup Ketchup
1 ½ pounds of ground chuck
¾ pound of ground pork or veal
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 large eggs, beaten slightly
¼ cup minced fresh parsley leaves
Directions:
- Preheat over to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- In a large heavy skillet cook the onion, garlic, celery rib, carrot in butter over medium heat, stirring, for about 5 minutes. Cover the skillet and stir occasionally until the carrots are tender, about 5 more minutes. Stir in salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and ¼ cup Ketchup. Cook for 1 more minute.
- In a large bowl, combine the meats, eggs, vegetables, breadcrumbs, and parsley. Scoop the mix into mini loaf pans, top off with Ketchup and bake for 45-60 minutes.
Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients:
2 lb. baking potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 tbsp. butter
1 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes; drain.
- In a small saucepan heat butter and milk over low heat until butter is melted. Using a potato masher or electric beater, slowly blend milk mixture into potatoes until smooth and creamy. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
To Make the Meat Loaf and Mashed Potatoes:
- Slice the mini meat loaf into halves.
- Top with a dollop of mashed potatoes
- Sprinkle with chopped chives
Mini Chicken Pot Pies
Ingredients:
3 cans Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup
2 packages of Grand Biscuits
2 9 inch unbaked pie crusts
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
- Using a mini muffin pan, fill the pans with unbaked piecrusts for 10 minutes.
- After allowing the pie crusts to cool for a few minutes, scoop the cream of chicken soup onto the baked piecrusts.
- Top with biscuit dough sealing the edges.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Personal Crudities
Ingredients:
Ranch Dressing
Carrots
Blanched Asparagus
Red Peppers
Directions:
- Using small votive candle holders, fill 1/3 of the way.
- Cut the carrots, blanched asparagus and red peppers into bite sized sticks.
- Fill the votive with the veggie sticks and serve.
Creamsicle Cocktail
Ingredients:
1 oz. vanilla vodka
½ oz. triple sec
orange juice
half and half
Directions:
- Pour the vodka and triple sec into a mixing glass filled with ice.
- Fill with equal parts of orange juice and half and half.
- Shake well.
Strain into a highball glass filled with fresh ice.
1970′s Inspired Playlists
Here is a great playlist to get your party guests enthralled into the 1970′s.
- Disco Inferno – The Trammps
- The Hustle – Van McCoy
- Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees
- Shake Your Booty – The Hit Crew
- Bad Girls – Donna Summer
- Ladies Night – Kool & The Gang
- Turn the Beat Around – Vicki Sue Robinson
- Le Freak – Chick
- Don’t Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston
- Knock on Wood –Amii Stewart
- If I Can’t Have You – Yvonne Elliman
- Hustle It – The Hit Crew
- Burn Baby Burn –Disco Inferno
- Rock Freak – GQ
- Toot Toot Beep Beep – Donna Summer
- Do the Boogie – FatBack
- Shake, Shake, Shake – KC & The Sunshine Band
“Pugsley’s Punch” — Recommended by Pugsley Addams
Pugsley
Pugsley is the younger brother of Wednesday Addams and son of Gomez and Morticia. Pugsley’s favorite past time is being tortured by his sister.
Cocktail:
Pugsley’s Punch
7 oz Punch Glass
Ingredients:
1 oz Apple Juice
1 oz Orange Juice
1 oz White Grape Juice
1 oz Pineapple Juice
1 oz Cranberry Juice
1 oz Sprite
Gummy Worms, Bugs, etc. for the ice cubes
Using an ice cube tray, place gummy worms and bugs into the compartments and then fill with water and place in the freezer until frozen. In a punch glass, filled with gummy ice cubes, combine even parts of each juice, top off with a splash of sprite.
Food Paring:
3 –D Creepy Cupcakes
Chocolate cupcakes with 3D candy eyeballs and skulls
Ingredients:
1 box Dark Chocolate Cake Mix
Eggs
Oil
Water
Dark Chocolate Frosting
Wilton Candy Melts – Available in numerous colors and flavors
Wilton Candy Molds – Skulls and Eyeballs
To Make Cupcakes: Follow the instructions on the back of the boxed Dark Chocolate cake mix, following the necessary steps to make the cupcakes. Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, ice the cupcakes with the Dark Chocolate Frosting (you may use a decorating bag to frosten the cupcakes if that is easiest for you).
To Make Candy Skulls and Eyeballs: Melt chocolate in the microwave using the instructions on the packaging. Using the Wilton Candy Molds, fill each mold with the chocolate colors of your choice; refrigerate to harden. When hardened, slightly twist the tray to remove the chocolates.
Decorate each cupcake with the skulls and eyeballs and sprinkles.
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“Witch’s Brew” — Recommended by Grandma
Grandma
Grandma practices potions, spells, and hexes, but her craft has become a bit rusty with age. While not quite sure who’s mother she really is, the Addams Family treats her like one of their own.
Cocktail:
Witch’s Brew (warm)
Ingredients:
For spiced tea (serves 6):
4 cups Water
4 Whole Cloves
2 Cinnamon sticks
2 Whole All Spice
8 Juniper Berries
Pinch of ground Nutmeg
4 Lipton’s Tea bags
1 oz Pierre Ferrand Cognac (per serving)
Splash of Orange Juice
Coffee Beans (aka Beetle Beans)
Whipped Cream
To make the tea: In a saucepan, bring water, cloves, cinnamon sticks, all spice, juniper and nutmeg to a boil. Using a sieve, strain the boiling water into a glass pitcher and add four tea bags to the mixture.
To make the cocktail: Add 1 oz. brandy or cognac and 4 oz of tea to the snifter and garnish with a dollop of whipped cream and 3 coffee beans (aka beetle beans). Serve hot.
** To make non-alcoholic, omit brandy.
Food Paring:
Witch Fingers
Frightening candy fingers on pretzel sticks
Ingredients:
Pretzel Rods
Wilton Candy Melts – Available in numerous colors and flavors
Wilton Witch Finger Candy Molds
Melt chocolate in the microwave using the instructions on the packaging. Using the Wilton Candy Molds, fill each mold with a pretzel rod and the chocolate colors of your choice; refrigerate to harden. When hardened, slightly twist the tray to remove the Witch fingers.
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“The Vanilla Freeze” — Recommended by Lurch
Lurch
Lurch is the devoted family butler who does all the household chores except for the cooking. Lurch exists somewhere between the living and the dead, which is why it often takes him longer than most to get something done. He remains a faithful servant and companion to The Addams Family.
Cocktail:
The Vanilla Freeze
Ingredients:
½ cup vanilla ice cream
¾ oz Smirnoff Vanilla vodka
¾ oz Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur
Splash Orange Juice
Wilton Color Mist Food Color Spray – Green
To make the cocktail: Spray the goblet with the Wilton Color Mist Food Color Spray. Mix all the ingredients together in a blender on a low speed for 10-15 seconds. Spoon the mixture into a wine goblet.
** To make non-alcoholic, omit vodka and replace Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur with one packet of Land O’ Lakes or Ghirardelli white hot chocolate mix (1.5 oz).
Food Paring:
Spooky Candy Cookie Sandwiches
Halloween shaped sugar cookies with candy centers
Ingredients:
Ready to Bake Sugar Cookie Dough
Wilton Halloween Cookie Cutters
Wilton Candy Melts – Available in numerous colors and flavors
Non-Stick Cookie Sheet
Using a rolling pin and flour, roll out the sugar cookie dough to be approximately ¼ of an inch in thickness. Once the dough is rolled and flat, using the Wilton Halloween Cookie Cutters, cut the cookies and place them on a non-stick cookie sheet. Follow the baking instruction on the back of the packaging to ensure you are cooking them for the appropriate time and temperature. Once cookies are cooled, melt the desired Wilton Candy Melts and spread evenly on each cookie. Sandwich the melted candy with another cookie of the same shape. Decorate the cookie with the candy melts as desired.
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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
The Thirtini, lavender infused summer re-hydrator
Herbs aren't just for tea... infuse fresh florals into your summer cocktail
The Thirtini was the signature cocktail created with SKYY Vodka for the guests this August at The Thirteen Summer House on Fire Island, NY. This is a one-of-a-kind cocktail creation that uses such varied ingredients as cucumber, lavender and citrus juices to create what we think is the number one tipple of the summer. Cucumber is a great summertime cocktail addition because it’s so refreshing and re-hydrating. I’ve always said, hydration is key when entertaining outdoors so cool your guests off this herbal infusion at your next summer party.
Ingredients:
1.5 oz. SKYY Vodka
1.5 oz orange juice
.5 lemon juice
(Santa Cruz lemon juice by the bottle is an acceptable alternative)
6 thinly sliced cucumber wheels
1.5 oz. homemade lavender syrup*
* For the syrup
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of whole lavender flowers
Tools:
Cocktail shaker
Pairing knife
1-quart saucepan
Fine metal sieve
Wooden spoon
Make the Lavender Syrup in advance:
In a small saucepan combine water the sugar and place it over medium high heat. As soon as the syrup comes to a full boil and the sugar is completely dissolved, add the lavender flowers, push them under the surface with a spoon, and immediately remove the pan from the heat. Cover the pan and let the herb steep in the sugar water for 30 minutes. Pour the syrup through a fine sieve and press down firmly on the herbs with a back of a spoon to extract any syrup that is held in the leaves. Store in a covered bottle or jar in the refrigerator for up to 3 months.
Mix all the ingredients together in a shaker and add ice. Shake hard for 30 seconds until the cucumber wheels break up. Strain over fresh cubed ice and garnish with either a thin stick of cucumber or 1 sprig of fresh lavender.
