Rachel Marwedel
Staff Writer
Each Monday, I gather my roommates and taste-test two mocktails. However, for this week, we did one special Halloween Mocktail! Here’s how this week’s went:
Old Black Magic
A tart blood-red liquid swirls in a crystal glass rimmed with a shimmering black mystery.
- ½ cup tart cherry juice
- ½ cup pomegranate juice
- 1 tbsp simple syrup
- For rim:
- Dash of activated charcoal
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- 2 tbsp honey
For the rim, mix activated charcoal with water. Pour charcoal water mix into sugar. Add more sugar as needed, until the mixture is sticky. Add honey. Mix. Place the glass upside down in the mixture and twist until the rim is thoroughly coated in the mixture.
For the drink, mix cherry juice, pomegranate juice, and simple syrup. Add lime juice or simple syrup to taste. Chill before serving.
For Halloween, I really wanted to make something elegant and classy, but still infused with that little bit of Halloween spookiness. Normally I do two mocktails per week, but due to the difficulty of coming up with this recipe, I decided to stick with just one semi-original creation this week. Several hours of trawling through the interwebs revealed the two recipes this drink is based on: That Old Black Magic and Black Mocktail (found here, at campuscooks.com, and here, at advancedmixology.com).
My original intention was to have a pure black drink – I wasted about thirty minutes experimenting with adding charcoal to the pomegranate/cherry mix. No matter the quantities though, the drink ended up tasting very chalky and sticking to the roof of my mouth. So, charcoal in drinks is a no-go. In the original recipes, they call for agave syrup or honey. However, simple syrup works the same way, so I substituted it in. After some brief experimentation, I also gave up on adding sparkling water. Sometimes, simple is best.
Now onto the rim! This one is totally original on my part. My roommate had shown me a TikTok for a bloody rim earlier, so I spent ten minutes trying to recreate it with honey and grenadine syrup. However, without red food coloring, it’s impossible – the syrup thins the honey out too much. (If you’re interested in making this yourself, just mix thick honey with red food coloring, then apply similarly to the rim mentioned here. Except, let this one drip down the sides). After I gave up, I mixed syrup with the charcoal powder. However, it was far too powdery. After adding honey and water, a sparkling, mysterious, black substance appeared!
If you’re wondering why I used charcoal instead of food coloring, it’s because… Well honestly, I’m just stubborn. Using food coloring feels like cheating. Activated charcoal makes an excellent substitution for black food coloring. It also can help hangovers! Not that I would know anything about that, since this is Mocktail Monday. However, use it sparingly. In high quantities, it can cause digestive issues. If you’re having trouble finding some, look in your local grocery store’s supplements section. Breaking open capsules and using the powder in there is safe.
When drunk in a crystal glass by candlelight, you feel like a proper creature of the night. The tartness of the juice mixes well with the sugary rim. However, the drink shines most in the presentation. When the light catches the glass just right, and the rim sparkles despite the darkness of the night – this is a drink to be remembered.
