Boo-ze?

As promised, a bevy (ahem) of beverages to celebrate my favorite season.

I got a handful of submissions for this, and my trusty co-judge (We'll call her "Teach") and I chose four to try. We got super technical with our judging; more so, obviously, as the night went on. By the time we were inventing shots, our point system was long out the window and we were just thumbs upping and thumbs downing. We had a blast decorating our drinks, by the way. But don't let the pretty black sugar fool you. Some of these were awful.

So I'm just going to share our thoughts. Starting with, hands down, the best drink of the night.

Submitted/created by Jessica & Matt. Nice work, guys!

Shut Up & Drink (AKA Captain Mom) 

2 parts apple vodka

1 part butterscotch schnapps

1 part 1/2 & 1/2

squirt of caramel

Shake with ice and serve in a martini glass. Garnish with whipped cream and caramel.

Teach: Wow...this is like...drinking for apples instead of bobbing for apples. It's just like a caramel apple. It really makes me think of Halloween.
Pammy: I could only order one of these. It's really sweet, but the flavor is great.
Teach: It's like one of those caramel apple suckers!
Pammy: OMG, totally.

(At this point we started debating what the point system should be and if it should contain a category for "seasonality" or "halloweeness." And then we decided both were dumb and moved on to the next drink.) 

Submitted by Laura. Black sugar and a cinnamon stick and we were all fancy pants.

Pumpkin Pie Martini

(courtesy Manhattan's Haru Sushi, with slight substitutions and our garnish)

1.5 oz pear vodka

1 oz pumpkin puree

1/4 oz triple sec

 1/4 oz simple syrup

splash of bitters

dash of nutmeg 

dash of cinnamon

Combine and shake with ice. Serve in a sugar-rimmed martini glass with a cinnamon stick.

Teach: I could smell this all day...or night.
Pammy: It smells like a spa.
Teach: Yes. It's relaxing. (heh, Teach was already drunk)
Pammy: This is more my speed. Not as sweet.
Teach: Isn't it awesome? All the flavors...I want to keep smelling it! (Smells it for awhile) This one is seasonal. And festive.
Pammy: It's really rich. Also good for just one drink.
Teach. Yes. That is pumpkin pie.
 (five minutes later)
Pammy: The end gets kind of...chunky—
Teach: And that's no good.

Note: Do not make the following drinks. In fact, I'm not even going to post their recipes.

Chocolate Orange Martini

Pammy: This looks awe.some. We're ridiculous.  
(Take sips. We just make faces for awhile.)   
Pammy: So, this was supposed to be dark chocolate, not white chocolate.
Teach: I. love. dark chocolate.
Pammy: Me tooo. I really don't like white chocolate.
Teach: Noooo.
Pammy: We should have known better. We made it look the most festive—
Teach: but that does not make up for it being awful.


And down the sink it went. 

Pumpkin Spice Latte Martini
(Note: I tried making this work all weekend, until I literally was going to vomit if I saw the bottle of Kahlua one more time. I'm thinking Bailey's may have been a more obvious choice, but I didn't want to buy another bottle of booze.)

Teach: This looks like cozy in a cup!
Pammy: It looks awesome.
Teach: It's seriously just cute.
(takes sip.)
Pammy: I really wanted this to work. The mix is just...wrong. What is wrong with it?? Does it need actual coffee?
Teach: It's really bitter. Too much Kahlua?
Pammy: Yeah, it's definitely not sweet enough. It's so pretty though.

And down the sink it went. And at this point, we decided we should create our own drinks, so we made a Pumpkin Milk base (1 part pumpkin puree, 2 parts 1/2 and 1/2, 1 part simple syrup, a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg) and went from there. Here's the best.

Holidaze Shot
1 oz Pumpkin Milk
1 oz vodka*
Mix in shot glass.

*We may have tried this with regular, vanilla, pear, and apple vodkas. I like regular. She liked vanilla.

So anyway, cheers everybody. Hope you had great Halloweens. Hubby and I decided to stick a "baby's sleeping-ring the doorbell and perish" sign on the door (not actually what it said, but it should have. I always think of the good stuff too late, damnit) and left a bowl of starbursts on the front porch. Because we thought it was a nice thing to do for the first four kids who came to our door.

Hey, you snooze, you lose.