Spooky Spirits: What To Drink At Your Halloween Party
When you're finished making your DIY pumpkin vodka, we have another two spirits that are must-haves for the Halloween bash. These Halloween (and Day of the Dead) inspired spirits are the perfect addition to any creepy-crawly bash — and these are the two your friends will be talking about long after the party ends.
Try to get over the name — it's spookier than it sounds. From the Ashland, Ore., Rogue Brewery (responsible for Dead Guy Ale, Dad's Little Helper, and Brutal IPA brews), the Dead Guy Whskey is made in a custom-made, 150-gallon Vendome copper-pot still.
Dead Guy Whiskey is made using the same four grains that have been used to make Dead Guy Ale since 1991 — Northwest Harrington, Maier Munich, Klages, and Carastan malts. After the malts are combined with free-range coastal water and brewed at Rogue Brewery, distiller's yeast is added to the sweet wort. The entire mash is then hauled across a parking lot to Rogue Spirits, where it is fermented for approximately seven days before being double-pot distilled. After distillation, the whiskey is aged in new, charred American oak barrels for approximately three months before being bottled and labeled by hand.
Rogue Dead Guy Whiskey earned the Gold Medal at the 2011 International Review of Spirits Competition and the 2010 World Beverage Competition. And yes, that bottle does glow in the dark — you may want to make sure that no one tries to steal it from the party.
While most may start drinking tequila well before Halloween, Nov. 1 is actually the day to cherish the agave spirit. El Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) is the holiday where families gather to remember the lives of loved ones who have passed away. The holiday is meant to have a positive tone; families and friends also visit cemeteries and build small altars in honor of the deceased, decorating them with photos, bottles of tequila, and calavera (candy in the shape of a skull).
Inspired by the traditional calaveras used on the Day of the Dead, Kah Tequila Blanco pays reverence to El Día de los Muertos. Forged from artisanal ceramics, each bottle of Kah (which means "life" in ancient Mayan) Tequila is a hand-painted, individually numbered work of art — no two bottles are the exact same.
While Kah Tequila's skull-shaped bottles pay homage to the enduring spirit of Mexican tradition, the celebration begins with the tequila inside. Made from 100 percent estate-grown, organic blue agave, Kah Tequila Blanco has intensely sweet notes of citrus followed by a spicy, peppery punch. The spirit is distilled twice in a stainless steel pot, and then triple filtered and aged in the skull-shaped bottles. This is one spirit you can enjoy Oct. 31, Nov. 1, and beyond.
Find these Halloween spirits and others at Caskers.com, an online retailer dedicated to craft spirits. Use the invite code "TDM" or "THEDAILYMEAL" to access Caskers.com.