Spook your guests with the Wandering Eye Martini
This purple, fizzy Halloween cocktail comes topped with lychee eyeball garnishes that stare right back at you from the glass.
Halloween is the perfect excuse to get creative behind the bar. Everyone remembers the food, but the drinks are where you can really have fun, and this eye martini is guaranteed to be a talking point. Underneath the fizz sits an “eyeball” with a blueberry pupil and a thin red vein drawn on with food colouring, balanced across the rim on a skewer so it bobs gently in the glass. The purple base comes from a splash of blackberry liqueur, which turns an ordinary gin fizz into something that looks like it was poured straight out of a cauldron.
Candy eyeballs are the easy shortcut, but lychees give you a much more realistic result. Canned lychees have a naturally translucent, eye-white appearance, so all you need to do is add an iris and pupil. If you want to make a bigger batch for a party, the eyeballs can be made a day ahead and kept in the fridge, ready to skewer just before serving.
This one’s built for two, but the ratios scale up easily if you’re making a jug for a crowd. Just keep the fizzy top-up separate until you’re ready to pour, so it doesn’t go flat.
Prep time: 15 minutes | Servings: 2
Ingredients
For the cocktail:
- 100 ml gin
- 50 ml crème de mûre (blackberry liqueur)
- 25 ml fresh lemon juice
- 25 ml sugar syrup
- Ice, for shaking
- 100 ml chilled soda water or sparkling wine, to top up
For the eyeballs:
- 4 canned lychees, drained
- 4 fresh blueberries (or small peeled grapes)
- A few drops of red food colouring gel
- 2 bamboo skewers
Method
- Make the eyeballs first. Push a blueberry into the hollow of each drained lychee, pupil-side facing out.
- Dip a toothpick into the red food colouring gel and drag it lightly across the surface of each lychee to create thin, spidery veins. Don’t overdo it, a few fine lines look far more convincing than a solid blob.
- Thread two lychee eyeballs onto each skewer and set aside.
- Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the gin, crème de mûre, lemon juice, and sugar syrup, then shake hard for about 15 seconds until the outside of the shaker feels cold.
- Strain into two chilled coupe or martini glasses.
- Top each glass with soda water or sparkling wine, pouring slowly so the fizz doesn’t overflow.
- Rest a skewer of eyeballs across the rim of each glass so it dips slightly into the drink.
- Serve immediately while it’s still cold and fizzing.
