Eye of the Storm (Halloween Dark and Stormy Cocktail)

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Our Halloween cocktail is a spooky twist on a dark and stormy, with rum, ginger beer, a squeeze of fresh lime and cherry juice and grenadine for that bright red color. These are perfect for your next costume party, and they're easy to make!

Front view of cocktail with dry ice coming off the surface.

🍹 Why We Love This Recipe

Classic flavors, seasonal twist: This recipe is a modified dark and stormy - one of our all-time favorite cocktails - that's been given a Halloween spin with cherry juice and grenadine for color, and a spooky eyeball ice cube for fun. What's not to like?
Well-rounded flavor profile: Ginger beer and rum add spiciness, cherry and lime juice contribute a great tart flavor, and grenadine rounds everything out with a nice touch of sweetness.
Ridiculously easy: Just pour everything into a cocktail shaker and shake it up, then top off with ginger beer. That's it. (Spooky eyeball ice cube and dry ice optional, but encouraged!)

🍶 Ingredients

Here's everything you need to make this spooky Halloween cocktail:

📋 Ingredient Notes

Tart cherry juice: You can normally find this as concentrate, so be sure to dilute it according to package instructions or your cocktail will be incredibly sour. If you can't find tart cherry juice, you can also use regular cherry juice, cranberry juice or pomegranate juice.
Grenadine: This is a pomegranate-based syrup. It's super sweet and contains zero alcohol. We mainly use this in the cocktail for its red color, but it also adds a touch of sweetness. It's an ingredient we always keep stocked in our bar cart – it's great for cocktail classics like a Shirley Temple, Tequila Sunrise or Hurricane.
Ginger beer: Using a high quality ginger beer (like Goslings) will elevate the quality of your drink. Lower quality ginger beer can be super sweet and lacking in flavor. Some ginger beer contains alcohol, but we use nonalcoholic version. Either is fine for this recipe.
Lime juice: freshly squeezed is always best in cocktails – it's way more tart and mush fresher tasting than the stuff that comes in a bottle.
Rum: there are many different styles and variations of rum – each with a different flavor profile. For a delicious dark and stormy cocktail, we prefer dark rum, which is aged and has a much more robust flavor than white/clear rum.

🔪 Step-by-step Instructions

(1) Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Add rum, cherry juice, lime juice, and grenadine to the shaker and shake well.

(2) Pour into a glass filled with ice and top with ginger beer. Garnish with a lime wedge.

Three picture panel of ingredients being added to cocktail shaker and then poured out.

(Optional) Make eyeball ice cubes for your cocktail, using lychee and blueberries. You can find canned lychee in the Asian foods section of your grocery store.

Slice each lychee fruit in half, then place a blueberry in the opening of each lychee fruit, place in an ice cube tray, fill with water and freeze.

Overhead view of blueberry lychee "eyeballs".

💭 Expert Tips and FAQs

Dry ice: for extra spooky cocktails, you can add a small piece of dry ice for the smoky, bubbly effect seen here.
- WARNING: be VERY careful handling dry ice – do not let it touch exposed skin. We use gloves and tongs to transfer into each glass. You only need a very small sliver to create the effect. If you add to much, the drink will start to freeze.
Make ahead for a party: make the ice cubes up to several weeks ahead of time. You can also multiply and make the base cocktail mixture (except for the ginger beer) ahead of time and store in a pitcher. When ready to serve, stir/whisk well, pour into each glass and top off with ginger beer.

Where can I find lychee?

You can usually find it canned in the Asian foods section of your local grocery store. To prep them for these eyeball ice cubes, you'll want to slice each one in half.

What can I use instead of grenadine?

If you don't have any, you can sub with Chambord (raspberry liqueur) or pomegranate molasses. Alternatively, leave it out and sub with simple syrup (but note that the color won't be as vibrant).

Can you make this into a mocktail? (Non-alcoholic cocktail)

Yes! Substitute the rum with extra cherry juice and ginger beer. Alternatively, we recently tried these nonalcoholic spirits and loved them!

Overhead view of cocktail with dry ice and bubbles.

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