Halloween is a fun time for celebrating the spectral spirits, ghastly ghouls and frightening fiends. Turns out, it also works for alarming alliteration (but that might just be me). When day turns to night, I start to think of both candy (because who doesn’t?) and cocktails. On the cocktail front, there’s always a balance I want to hit. I try to have a cocktail that’ll be fun, but also hint at the mysterious oddities of the season. To that end, the first alcohol that springs to mind is absinthe. You get your fun, funky flavors, but also a little something extra. Knowing that, let’s explore the mystery and wonder that is the Chocolate Green Fairy!

Why yes, come Halloween, I have the most perfect excuse to eat chocolate: it’s Halloween. For that same reason, when I have a Halloween cocktail, I want something that includes chocolate, without the sheer over-the-top-ness (without the hat turned backwards) of the Extreme Chocolate Martini or the Grasshopper (which could work, garnish with some actual chocolate covered grasshoppers!), but that certainly gets at the fun of Halloween.

Knowing that I wanted to add chocolate and have some absinthe, I played around with those flavors and determined that while putting the two together does (actually, surprisingly) work by themselves, they needed an accent flavor. Something to help cut the richness of the chocolate and accent the licorice of the absinthe.

Turns out that extra flavor is a simple orange curaçao.

Those three flavors worked so well together that I knew my experimentation was done, but because this is such a simple cocktail, the sourcing for each ingredient was important. Happily, our friends over at Vom Fass had just sent us some of their Absinthe Libertine, so we were good there.

Then, it was just about getting quality orange curaçao (not the blue variety, which works great in, say, a Blue Hawaiian Shark Attack, not so much in this) and a good white crème de cacao.

Finally, for the party piece to this Halloween cocktail.

As it’s all booze, you should opt to stir this one. Put the three components into your glass without ice and admire how clear and pristine they are in there. Next, add your ice and stir. DEAR LORD! THE GHOSTS! It’s turning ephemeral! From clear to spooky, green and hazy.

Magic +5.

Oh, we garnished this is homemade candied oranges, which you can too. The recipe is fairly straightforward. Take some orange peels (with as little pith, the white bit, as possible), then boil them in water four times, changing the water each time. This will blanch them and remove some of the bitterness. Next, simmer them in a simple syrup for an hour. Finally, drain them and let them dry in sugar. Ta da!

Halloween is a go! Let’s celebrate with the Chocolate Green Fairy!

 

October 23rd, 2015 | by morgan