It’s Halloween, and as a nation it’s become one of our favourite excuses for a party!

So, you and your pals have planned your Halloween costumes, carved your pumpkins with terrifying (well, terrifyingly bad) ghoulish faces, got all the cobwebs and spooky decorations up, put your Halloween playlist ready for a scarily bad dance around the living room, and stocked up on sweets for the “trick or treat” troops.

All that’s left to do now is… decide which Halloween cocktails to make for your guests, of course!

The good news is these easy Halloween cocktail ideas are fiendishly tasty! So, if you are hosting a Halloween cocktail party or simply want a devilishly tasty triple with your favourite monsters, you need to feast your eyes on these top ideas for Halloween drinks.

Whether it’s a Halloween cocktail pitcher recipe you’re after, or you simply fancy some black Halloween cocktails to get into the spooky spirit, there’s something here for everyone.

In this Halloween-themed cocktail feature, we show you how to do a black sugar rim and a (frankly, really gross) ‘eyeball’ Halloween cocktail garnish.

For extra spooky touches, you could also garnish your Halloween drinks with jelly snakes, little toy plastic spiders or fake teeth. You could even wrap your Collins or Highball glass in bandages to ‘mummify’' it!

Check out our 9 Halloween Garnishes for more spooktacular Halloween decoration ideas.

Happy Halloween, gin lovers!

The best Halloween cocktail recipes:

Hocus Pocus G&T

Have you seen a prettier purple Halloween cocktail?

It’s technically a spooky G&T recipe for Halloween - but with its witchy, colour-changing effect it’ll no doubt wow your Halloween party guests. Infuse your gin with Butterfly Pea Flower to create a colour-changing spirit that magically transforms from blue to purple!

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Black Cat Martini

We love this blue Curacao Halloween cocktail recipe!

We don’t know if seeing a black cat on Halloween is lucky or unlucky, but whoever gets served one of these wickedly black martinis on October 31st will definitely be counting themselves lucky!

50ml gin
25ml blue curaçao
15ml Chambord (or similar dark purple berry liqueur)
Squeeze of lemon

Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass full of ice, then add all your other ingredients and shake (or stir gently for a minute if using a mixing glass). Strain into a chilled martini glass and serve.

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Witches Brew Cocktail

Did you think coloured Halloween cocktails had to be sickly sweet? Think again!

This vivid green Halloween cocktail will light up your Halloween party and bewitch your guests with its notes of melon (from the Midori), lime and basil.

45ml gin
15ml Midori melon liqueur
30ml lime cordial
4 basil leave

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake thoroughly. Strain into a chilled coupe.

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Satan’s Whiskers

It may sound devilish, but this sweet gin and orange cocktail tastes absolutely heavenly!

30ml gin
15ml orange liquer like Cointreau
15ml sweet vermouth
15ml dry vermouth
15ml blood orange juice
2 dashes of orange bitters (like Angostura)

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake thoroughly. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice and garnish with a blood orange wheel and mint.

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Bloody Good Gin Fizz

This dreamy tipple is firmly in the fun Halloween cocktails category. Inject some life into your Halloween party drinks with this bloodcurdling idea for your pink gin cocktails!

45ml gin
30ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
15ml grenadine or raspberry syrup
90ml soda (or to taste)

Fill your syringe with the grenadine or red fruit sugar syrup of your choice.

Fill a chilled highball glass with ice and add the gin, lemon juice and soda. Stir briefly. Pop the syringe into the glass like a garnish and serve, inviting guests to inject the blood-red grenadine into the drink!

For the best flavour results, once the initial impact of the syringe has happened, we would encourage drinkers to gently mix the ingredients to combine.

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Full Moontini

How cool is this Full Moontini recipe from Fresh Flavourful? A spherical ice cube tray will give you the mystical full-moon ice floating in a dark sea of charcoal-tinted black gin.

50ml gin
½ teaspoon charcoal powder
100ml pineapple juice
25ml lime juice
25ml soda water

Add the charcoal powder to the pineapple juice and stir until it has dissolved.

Add all the ingredients except soda water to a shaker with ice and shake hard to combine. Strain into a chilled coupe and top up with soda water to taste. Top with a large round ice cube for a floating full moon effect!

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Pumpkin Spice Martini

Autumn's favourite coffee just got a ginny makeover!

If you love Baileys, you’ll love this Baileys Halloween cocktail… Made with gin, Baileys Irish Cream and pumpkin spice syrup, this delicious gin cocktail is the perfect cocktail for your Halloween party and it's super easy to make at home.

Top with a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg, and serve in mini pumpkins for extra spooky points!

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The Last Word

A couple of sips of this cherry gin cocktail and you'll find yourself doing the 'Monster Mash'!

20ml gin
20ml freshly squeezed lime juice
30ml cherry liqueur
30ml Green Chartreuse

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake thoroughly. Strain into a chilled coupe.

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Gin Zombie

It wouldn’t be Halloween without a Zombie cocktail! This gin twist on a classic tiki “Zombie” is named The Winchester - best to mix one up, “and wait for this all to blow over”…

(Serves 2)

30ml Old Tom Gin
30ml Navy Strength Gin
30ml Gin
25ml lime juice
25ml grapefruit juice
25ml Elderflower Liqueur
15ml grenadine
10ml ginger syrup
2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Add all the ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Fill a tiki or skull glass with crushed ice and strain your cocktail into the glass. Garnish with mint and lime.

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Vampire Martini

Sure, you SAY it’s really a Tomatini, but how do we know that’s what’s REALLY in it?!

1 large tomato
50ml gin
10ml white balsamic vinegar or lemon juice
10ml simple syrup

Muddle the tomato in the bottom of a cocktail shaker, then add gin, vinegar, lemon juice and simple syrup. Add ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

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Blackberry Gin Halloween Punch

Looking for a Halloween cocktail for a crowd? Try this Red Halloween Cocktail! Devilishly dark and dangerously delicious, this cocktail serves four citizens of the night!

A punnet of blackberries
Juice of 2 limes or lemons
60ml blackberry syrup*
180ml gin
400ml tonic water, lemonade or soda water

To make your punch, fill a pitcher with lots of ice and then pour in all the ingredients. Stir with a long spoon gently for a minute, until the mixture is really chilled.

To make a black sugar rim for your gin glasses, mix sugar with a drop of vanilla essence and a few drops of black food colouring, then dip the rim of the glasses into water before pressing into the black sugar to coat.

*To make your blackberry syrup, simmer 200g caster sugar with 200 ml of water and the blackberries, stirring gently to break down the fruit.

After 5-10 minutes, you should have a sticky, dark red syrup. Strain into a clean jar and leave to cool in the fridge before using.

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Bloody Red Snapper

The Red Snapper, using gin instead of vodka, was the original Bloody Mary. We can’t think of a better idea for a Halloween costume than coming dressed as (a) Bloody Mary!

50ml gin
100ml tomato Juice
Hot sauce, to taste
Worcestershire sauce, to taste
A generous grind each of salt and pepper
Celery and lemon slices, to garnish

Fill a tall glass with ice and combine your gin and tomato juice cocktail. Drop in hot sauce and Worchester Sauce to taste, then grind in salt and pepper. Stir with celery stalk, squeeze in the juice of a lemon wedge (if desired) and serve.

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Waiter, Eye have got something in my gin

These, um, eye-catching eyeball gin garnishes are easy to make and taste a lot better than they look!

For the eyeballs:

Tinned lychees
Raspberry, blackcurrant or blueberry jam
Blueberries
Red food colouring

For the cocktail:

35ml gin
120ml cranberry juice
Half a lemon or lime
2 tsp simple syrup or honey

To make the ‘eyeball’ garnishes, drain the lychees.

Use a piping bag or the end of a chopstick to squeeze a little blob of jam inside the cavity. Carefully push a blueberry into the centre of the fruit.

Now use a toothpick or thin paintbrush to draw little ‘bloodshot’ lines onto the eyeball.

You can freeze the eyeballs until they are ready to use.

Fill your glass two-thirds full with ice. Add your gin, syrup or honey, a few good squeezes of juice from the lemon or lime, and top up with your cranberry juice. Stir gently for 20 seconds. Add your eyeballs and serve!

How to create the best Halloween cocktail names:

One of the best things about Halloween-themed cocktails is getting to come up with a positively ghastly yet fun Halloween cocktail name!

Picking the perfect Halloween cocktail name for your tipple is a real opportunity to get the creative juices flowing. But it can be tricky! Luckily, we are here to help you out...

We recommend starting with the colour of the cocktail in question. 

Is your Halloween cocktail red? Think blood. Which Halloween creature do you most associate with blood? Vampires. This is how we got to the name “Vampire Martini” (above). But you could take it a step further too. Are there any famous vampires you could name-drop? Dracula! 

Our Vampiri Martini could just as easily be called “Dracula’s Kiss” or something around that theme.

Another good way to come up with a good Halloween cocktail name is to look at the elements that make your recipe special and use those elements to create a fun pun.

For our “Waiter, Eye Have Something In My Drink”, this is exactly what we did. 

For the Waiter, Eye Have Something In My Drink cocktail we used the lychee eyeball garnish as inspiration for the cocktail name and the big ice ball for the “Full Moontini”. 

Glassware is also an important factor in cocktail naming. The Vampire Martini is named so because it’s in a martini glass. But you don’t have to be so literal.

Our Gin Zombie got its name, not only because it is a riff on the classic zombie cocktail but also because the skull Halloween glass makes it look like you are drinking from a zombie’s head. Gruesome yet delicious!  

Whatever you decide to name your Halloween cocktail, we are sure your guests will love it!