You don’t need to kill yourself concocting eyeball punch and spider blood margaritas for your Halloween parties. Like heavy metal, the modern world of booze, beer and wine is chock-a-block with imagery of death, demons and odd creatures.
We’ve collected a few of our favorite Halloween and Dia de los Muertos-appropriate spirits to fill your bar with for the end of October. And we didn’t even make one bad "spirits" pun. It was tough.
Spirits
Cementerio Mezcalero: Named “graveyard mezcal,” this small-batch spirit is aged in glass, in honor of an old tradition that finds superior local agave distillates entombed in glass, buried and then exhumed for special occasions. We found a beautifully distinct agave flavor up front, with one of the longest, most pronounced finishes we’ve tasted in a mezcal. A portion of proceeds from each bottles also goes to support traditional Dia de los Muertos mezcal-unearthings in Tzitzio, Michoacan as a tourism draw. You can find it online right here.
Crystal Head Vodka: Obviously, if you can have people drinking alcohol from skulls at your party, you’re way ahead of the game. Crystal Head Vodka not only comes in a clear, near human-sized glass skull, it is actually good stuff as far as the clear spirit goes. It’s made using peaches, cream corn and Canadian water. Also, Dan Aykroyd is an owner. Let’s just let that hang there.
Kah Tequila: Why buy one of those beautifully decorated Dia de los Muertos calaveras when you obtain get one that’s full of award-winning tequila? We’ll let you think that over for a second.
Beer
Dead ‘n’ Dead: Oregon’s Rogue Ale & Spirits ages its Dead Guy beer for six months in the same barrels it uses to make its Dead Guy whiskey. The result? Double the morbidity in an ale bearing notes of whiskey, oak and caramel.
Satan Gold: Like an Old World version of Stone, Belgium’s de Block brewery produces a small line of beers dedicated to the Father of Lies himself. You can get Satan Gold, a lager, Satan Red or Satan Black. Or maybe just get a couple of beer mugs with the handsome Devils face on it.
City of the Dead: Southern California’s mighty Modern Times makes this stout with its own bourbon-barrel-aged, house-roasted coffee. It doesn’t have a scary label. It’s just called City of the Dead.
Wine
Wongraven Wines: These wines come from the frontman of a Norwegian black metal band. The Barolo looks particularly damned.
Ghost Pines: The foggy landscape on the labels for these Northern California wines just creeps us out, looking all Silent Hill and shit. Let’s get out of here.
Sinister Hand: This wine has a cool back story about a guy cutting off his own hand to win a race. You can read it on their site. Maybe the wine is good too.
Caduceus: Seems like a good time to mention that Tool and Perfect Circle’s tortured frontman Maynard James Keenan also makes wine. In Arizona. It doesn’t look particularly evil, but trust us.
Rattle & Roll: White wine, possibly the two least scary words on earth. But if you want to keep things subtle, while still a little creepy, the faux rattlesnake skin encircling Tank Garage Winery’s Rattle and Roll should do the trick.
Dearly Beloved: These wine make suitable table pieces for your Dia de los Muertos get-togethers. The kind that require more wine than tequila. We think they exist.
