Photo by Erin Gleeson.

Halloween’s only a few days away and many of you still haven’t bought or made your costume, or worst yet, haven’t even figured out what you’ll be dressing up as.  Unfortunately I can’t help you in that department. However where I can be of assistance is in figuring out what to serve at your party–or what to pre-party with if you’re not throwing a bash of your own.  If you’re still in search of your Halloween cocktail, then keep reading.

Admittedly, I’ve never been really good at–nor really fond of–making Halloween-themed cocktails. I’ve always had difficulty getting past the high kitsch factor. Now I know kitsch isn’t always a bad thing, especially when done smartly and with a moderate hand, but perhaps it’s been my lack of creativity that’s often made it a difficult hurdle.  This has been especially true when the creative impulse favors appearance over flavor and quality; when ingredients are chosen not so much for what they contribute to the flavor or aroma of a drink, but for their particular color or other attribute that helps the drink’s appearance fit within the event’s theme.  In the case of Halloween, it becomes critical for the drink’s name and/or appearance to reference something ghoulish, frightening, or what have you. So you often wind up with drinks made with crap ingredients like Midori because they’ll make the drink green to reference a monster or a witch or Frankenstein or whatever.

That said, it’s not always a choice of extremes, and there are always instances when one comes across a cocktail that hits the trifecta of flavor, appearance, and name dead on while staying in character and true to theme at hand.  This year, that drink is the Blood and Tears. It’s not a creation of mine, but rather a friend of mine and bartender Brian Matthys, a man who wins cocktail competitions left and right without the use of performance enhancing drugs.  One look at the ingredient list of this cocktail and you can see why. Below is the recipe, and the ingredients in italics are simply my own additions which I feel add a touch more depth and texture to the drink. Try them both ways to see which better suits your palate.

Blood and Tears
2 oz DonQ Gran Anejo rum
2 oz horchata (recipe below)
1/2 oz honey syrup (mix equal parts honey and hot water)
1/4 oz fresh lime juice
1 egg white (small egg is sufficient)
2  1/2 tbsp diced red bell pepper
2 small diced pieces habanero pepper
Peychaud’s bitters
pinch of cinnamon

Tools: shaker, strainer, muddler
Glass: chilled cocktail glass

In a cocktail shaker, add the peppers and honey syrup and muddle. Then add the rum, horchata, and optionally, the lime juice and egg white along with ice. Shake vigorously until your fingers are bloody and you’re in tears.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, then add a few drops of Peychaud’s bitters on top to give it that bloody effect, as well as a small pinch of ground cinnamon.  When using egg white, some like to do a dry shake (shaking ingredients without ice) to help it emulsify before adding the ice and shaking again to chill the drink. Also, because of the little pepper pieces in this drink, I like to double strain the drink using a fine strainer like a tea strainer to catch all those little bits.

Horchata (yields 3 quarts)
2 cups white rice
1 cup orgeat (I used Trader Tiki brand, but you can learn to make your own here)
1/3 cup almonds
1/3 cup cinnamon syrup (used Trader Tiki)
1 tsp rosewater

Place the rice in a container along with 4 cups water and cover and allow it to soak for at least 12 hours. In a separate container, place the almonds with 1 cup water and allow that to soak, covered, for same amount of time. Drain the rice and grind it as fine as possible. Drain and peel the almonds, then grind them the same way. Mix the rice with 2 quarts water and pass it through a fine sieve or cheesecloth into a 1 gallon container. Mix the almonds with 1 quart of water and fine strain it like the rice, into the same container. Add the orgeat, cinnamon syrup, and rosewater and mix well. Cover and chill in the refrigerator. Always stir before using as materials will separate and settle.

The Blood and Tears is a rare example of a Halloween-themed cocktail that successfully balances kitsch and quality. And if you go the extra mile of making horchata from scratch, not only will you be rewarded with an extra flavorful cocktail with a bright floral aroma, but you’ll have plenty left over for the Dia de los Muertos party.

Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below.

It’s mid-January and by this point many of you are off to the races as far as your resolutions are concerned. You’ve detoxed, cleaned up your diet, and are hitting the gym as frequently as a Playboy bunny who’s about to be cut from the squad.

However if you’re like me, 2010 didn’t really start off with a sprint to the gym, but rather a slow crawl to the yack-box. In fact I’m already breaking a resolution to not blog at work. And if you really are like me, and you don’t care too much for colonics and kale and banana smoothies, but want to feel like you’re at least taking some steps in the right direction to renew and rejuvenate your body, then I have the perfect elixir for you.

It’s called The Detox, and with it’s potent yet tasty blend of vodka, lemon juice, honey, rosemary, and chiles, it’s sure to kill any toxins (even the good ones) living inside you, and it tastes good to boot. Best of all you won’t need a yoga mat nor a gym membership. All you’ll need are a few key ingredients and your trusty cocktail shaker–and how often has your shaker, under my steady guidance, steered you wrong? Riddle me that if you will.

The Detox
2 oz vodka (I used Martin Ryan)
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz honey-rosemary syrup (see recipe near bottom of this post)
dash cayenne pepper
For the rim: cayenne, puebla chile powder, and date sugar (recipe below)

Glass: cocktail glass
Tools: shaker, strainer

Rub a lemon slice along the outer rim of the cocktail glass and dip it in the chile and date sugar mixture. Pour the other ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake until well chilled. Strain, enjoy, and repeat until your system is fully cleansed.

To make the rim mixture simply blend together 3-4 tbsp date sugar (found at most health food stores) with 1 tsp puebla chile powder and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper. If you’re spice averse you can exclude the cayenne pepper on the rim, since there’ll already be a dash of it in the cocktail.

Although I am not a vodka hater, in the world of craft mixology vodka is often treated worse than a biracial illegitimate stepchild. However I chose vodka in this cocktail for many of the same reasons it is hated: its purity and lack of dominating flavor which enable it to act more as a blank canvass in a cocktail than as a flavor component. I used Martin Ryan vodka because unlike most vodkas which have their souls distilled out of them, this still retains a bit of the spirit and essence of its origin distillate base, Oregon grapes.

So who needs all those new age detox diets and such when you have so many cleansing botanicals in one cocktail, right? Here’s to a starting the year on a healthy note. Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below!

**Paystyle was born in Tehran and grew up in Los Angeles (aka Tehrangeles) before moving to Brooklyn with his wife and co-pilot Vanessa Bahmani who provides the stunning photography of Pay’s cocktail concoctions. Return every Wednesday for his weekly Happy Hour column.

For this installment I’m sharing with you a chile pepper infused vodka and a cocktail I made with it. It’s really easy to infuse your own liquor, and vodka is my vehicle of choice because its neutral taste really enables it to take on the flavor of whatever you’re infusing it with. You can virtually use anything, from vanilla beans to fruits to spices.

Infusing liquor has been a very common practice throughout history, usually as a means of masking the flavor of spirits that were harsh, unrefined, and often homemade. In Iran it’s quite popular to infuse vodka (usually of cheap bootlegged or smuggled variety) with cherries.

It goes without saying that the higher quality your ingredients, especially when it comes to your choice of liquor, the better final product you’ll have. It may seem counterintuitive to “dilute” a high quality spirit with other ingredients, but a cleaner and purer liquor will make for more effective flavor infusion. So when it comes to vodka, the more times it is distilled, the cleaner and purer it is. I opt for vodka that’s at least triple-distilled; this time I used Svedka vodka, which is distilled 5 times, and not as expensive as some of the better known brands.

While I normally stick to fruits–I was set on using mangoes–this time I made a departure at the behest of my wife, and decided to infuse the Vodka with spicy chile peppers. I used a bunch of chiles of different varieties: Anaheim, Golden Cayenne, Holland, and Serrano. In order to make sure the peppers effectively release all that good heat and flavor, I took a knife and cut a slit down the side of each chile.

The next step was to add them to the jar, pour in the vodka, and store the jar somewhere away from direct sunlight. The length of time really depends upon the level of flavor infusion you’d like to achieve. For peppers I like to infuse for at least a couple of weeks, but then again I have a higher heat tolerance than most–and believe me, this vodka was no joke when it came to heat!

Dragon Tail

Here’s a drink I call a Dragon Tail, created from the spicy vodka and inspired by the upcoming Beijing games, and that will hopefully make you forget how badly the Olympics suck:

1 part Passoa passion fruit liqueur
2 parts chile pepper infused vodka
4 parts mango juice or nectar
Chile pepper for garnish

Combine all ingredients in a shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with the chile.

*Why not add some of this chile pepper infused vodka into your Bloody Mary? It’ll cure your hangover quick!

Come back every Wednesday for Paystyle’s weekly Happy Hour column.