‘Healthy’ Halloween Cocktails: The Hills Have Eyes
| October 29, 2012 |
You might not want to ditch your go-to drink of choice and I don’t blame you. We all have our favorites. But why not goul them up for Halloween?
Some of the healthier drink options at any bar or house party can be plain and very un-festive. The best choice of alcohol when it comes to calories is generally vodka and the best mixer is always soda water. When I go out and I want to drink on the healthier side, I usually pick a vodka soda with a splash of cranberry and a lime wedge. (And yes, I have gone to fun themed bars with all these great drinks and the bartenders have said my drink of choice is boring.)
Anyways, with these cocktail garnishes I made any drink can be festive. Put them in a vodka soda or martini as is. Or if you wanted to put it in a fruity drink or something that may not mix well with the olive, freeze them with water in the ice cube tray. Just finish your drink before the ice cube melts. These also look GREAT in red sangria. A perfect Halloween drink idea for a crowd.
Halloween Cocktail Eyeballs
- Radishes
- Manzanilla Olives
- Paring Knife
- Extra Small Melon Scooper or Equivalent
- Optional: Ice Cube Tray
Directions:
After washing your radishes, use your paring knife to slice the stem off. Carefully (very) use the blade to scrape the red off the radish. (Word to the wise, always scrape away from your body. You have less a chance to slice your thumbs.) It’s ok to leave some of the red still showing. It gives it a veiny look.
Use your melon scooper to make a hole the size of the olive in the radish. The hole should be at the opposite pole to the string of the root. If you don’t have a small enough melon scooper (like myself), improvise. I used the tip of my potato peeler because it was the perfect shape to scoop and had a semi pointy end to break into the radish. You can also use a paring knife here but it will be a lot harder to get a scoop versus a cut.
Then slice an olive in half and insert the rounded end into the hole you made in the radish. Adjust the size of the hole in the radish until it’s a snug fit.
Tip: If you are having trouble with your olive staying in the radish, use a toothpick to hold it in place. It actually adds a different creepy look. Insert the toothpick so the stick is perpendicular to the “line of vision” to the eye or through the side and out the other side. Meaning, if you are looking at the eyeball straight in the eye, you should see the stick on a plain and not pointing at you. Just be sure you get the stick in both the radish and the olive. Otherwise it won’t do it’s job holding the eyeball together.
Optional: Place one eyeball each in the sections of an ice cube tray. Fill water to the top of the tray. Freeze. Now you can use your eyeball in any drink with out worry that the flavors of the radish and olive will clash.
I thought it looked like lychee fruit… seems like that would be easier than peeling a radish and would taste better
Lychee fruit is such a great idea for the sweeter cocktails! I didn’t use lychee because a radish compliments a traditional martini really well. But lychee would taste so much better for cosmos and appletinis.