"Blood Moon" - a cocktail especially for Halloween

Here is how to make the rum cocktail:

First, prepare the fruit juice for the cocktail (the below makes between 5 and 8 cocktails)
- Take 350g of frozen raspberries and put them in a saucepan with a lid
- Add 100g of sugar
- Add 125ml of water
- Mix the ingredients together and bring to the boil. Once boiling, simmer for 20 minutes
- Remove from the heat. Allow the mix to cool and then filter using a sieve to extract the juice
- Place in the fridge for later

Cocktail ingredients for a single serving
- 50ml Swan Knight Distillery golden spiced rum
- 50ml Lemonade
- 30ml raspberry juice (as prepared above)
- 3 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Recipe
- Mix the cocktail ingredients together
- Pour into a martini glass and serve

How and when to drink this spiced rum cocktail

The Blood Moon rum cocktail is perfect for Halloween. The blood red colour of the cocktail works magically for the most spooky time of the year. It is also great when served at parties and celebrations, such as Christmas and New Year. The key to this cocktail is the preparation of the raspberry juice and this can be done in advance and then kept in the fridge overnight. If the cocktail tastes too sweet then adding more bitters or using freshly squeezed lemon juice may help.

For added spectacle at parties, you can add a thin layer of overproof rum on the top of the cocktail (over the back of a teaspoon) and then set light to it. Just be careful of the glass afterwards as it can get hot.

Inspiration for the cocktail

There were a couple of inspirations for this cocktail. Firstly, the Honey Deuce lent the idea of lemonade and raspberries while the Raspberry Daiquiri brings the rum to the party.

The Honey Deuce cocktail was created by the bartender, Nick Mautone, at the behest of Grey Goose vodka. This simple but delicious cocktail was made to celebrate the U.S. Open and uses a trio of melon balls as garnish, to represent tennis balls. A massive success with tennis fans, it can now be found in bars all over the world and is so easy to make at home that we have included it as a separate cocktail in its own right.

Another rum cocktail that we have included separately is the Daiquiri and and since it can come with many fruits, it was natural to try it with raspberries. The result was delicious and helped us on our culinary journey to this cocktail.