Sips & Synopsis - This Weeks Makings

• Foggy Mornings Meet Elegant Sips

• Trivia Question

• Drink of the Week - The Black Dahlia

• Mocktail Moment: Blackberry Sage Shrub

• The Sophisticated Side of Spooky

☁️ What’s in Your Glass This Week

It’s that time of year…foggy mornings, early sunsets, and a little chill in the air. Halloween is on the horizon, but this week we’re not going full cauldron mode just yet. Instead, we’re embracing the elegant side of spooky season with cocktails that are bold, broody, and just a little bit witchy.

✔️ Drink of the Week: The Black Dahlia - dark berry meets bitter herbs
✔️ Two bonus cocktails with smoky, earthy, and moody flavor notes
✔️ A mocktail that brings the mystery without the buzz
✔️ A story about the art of the elegant spooky sip
✔️ Gear to set the tone: dark glassware + smoky bitters
✔️ A quote and trivia to keep things eerily smart

Let’s lean into the shadows, beautifully.

Trivia Question❓

What classic Halloween candy was originally called “Chicken Feed”?

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter

Drink of the Week: The Black Dahlia

This cocktail is equal parts noir, herbal, and seductive. It’s fruit-forward but balanced with complexity, like sipping secrets in a velvet chair.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz vodka or gin

• 0.75 oz Crème de Cassis (blackcurrant liqueur)

• 0.5 oz Amaro Averna (or another rich, dark amaro)

• 0.5 oz fresh lemon juice

• Optional: blackberries or activated charcoal for a deeper hue

• Garnish: blackberry skewer

Directions:

1. Shake all ingredients with ice.

2. Double strain into a chilled coupe glass.

3. Garnish with a blackberry or a floating rose petal.

4. Serve under candlelight for best results.

🖤 The color is dramatic. The flavor is complex. The vibe is full moon meets film noir.

🔮 Bonus Cocktails

1. Charred Citrus Old Fashioned

• 2 oz rye whiskey

• 0.25 oz burnt orange syrup or brown sugar simple

• 2 dashes angostura bitters

• Garnish: flamed orange peel

Smoky and sweet with a little heat. Serve it over a big cube and let the drama unfold.

2. The Grave Garden

• 1 oz mezcal

• 1 oz Cynar (or other herbal amaro)

• 0.5 oz lime juice

• 0.5 oz rosemary syrup

• Garnish: smoked rosemary sprig

Herbal, earthy, smoky - like walking through a haunted herb garden at dusk.

Mocktail Moment: Blackberry Sage Shrub

• 1.5 oz blackberry shrub (or muddled berries + splash vinegar)

• 0.25 oz maple syrup

• 3 sage leaves

• Top with soda water

• Garnish: sage sprig or blackberries on a skewer

Muddle, shake, strain, and sip. It’s tart, herbal, and moody…in the best way.

🕯️ The Sophisticated Side of Spooky

Halloween doesn’t have to mean candy-corn cocktails or plastic spider garnishes. There’s an entire elegant subgenre of spooky sipping - and it lives in bitter amari, blackberries, smoked herbs, and deep garnet hues.

Think less haunted house, more haunted library. Less gimmick, more Gothic.

This week’s recipes are perfect for a moody nightcap, a “dark romance” dinner party, or a solo moment under string lights and shadows. You don’t need costumes, just good lighting, better music, and the right pour.

Cocktail Tools for Spooky Season

• 🥃 Black Stemmed Coupe Glasses (Set of 2) – Mysterious and elegant

• 🧪 Smoked Chili Bitters – Add a little fire to your fall sips