Yes, you can eat the eyeballs—they’re good for you!

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October 2006
Updated October 2007

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Cocktails

Bloody Eyeball Martini & Bleeding Brain Martini

Halloween Trick And Treat Cocktails

Halloween is for adults, too. Plan your own bash and serve these spooky twists on the martini—frightfully delicious Halloween martinis. They will delight your guests, but be a responsible host: Control the number served, and don’t turn your revelers into road monsters.

• Bloody Eyeball Martini
• Bloody Brain

Bloody Eyeball Martini

This cocktail, by Kris Plazek, founder of WhatToDrink.com, creates a radish and olive “eyeball,” which is frozen into an ice cube.

Ingredients Per Cocktail

• 2 ounces of gin or vodka
• ½ ounce of dry vermouth
• 1 small pimento-stuffed green olive

• 1 large radish (the olive must be insertable into the radish)

The “eyeballs” should be prepared a day before you plan to use them.

Preparation Of “Eyeballs”

1. Peel radish, leaving thin streaks of red skin on to represent blood vessels.
2. Using the tip of the vegetable peeler or a small knife, carefully scoop out a small hole at the top of the radish, roughly the size of an olive.
3. Stuff a green olive, pimiento side out, in each hole.
4. Place 1 radish eyeball in each section of an empty ice cube tray. Pare the radishes down a bit to fit, if necessary. Fill the tray with water and freeze overnight.
5. Place gin and vermouth in a cocktail shaker with ice.
6. Gently shake and pour, straining the ice, into a martini glass.
7. Garnish with an olive eyeball.

Begin with a radish.	Steps 1 & 2: Peel radish, leaving thin streaks of red skin. Scoop out a small hole at the top, the size of an olive.
Steps 3 & 4: Stuff an olive into the hole and freeze radishes in ice cubes.

Bloody Brain Martini

Your guests don’t have to be zombies from Night of the Living Dead to clamor for these bloody brains. The recipe is courtesy of Plymouth Gin.

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 ounces gin
• 1-1/2 ounces lychee nectar
• 1/2 ounce chilled saké
• Fresh lychee fruit
• Red food coloring

Preparation

1. In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add gin, lychee nectar and chilled saké. Stir until well-chilled and strain into a martini glass.
2. Garnish with a fresh lychee and add a drop of red food coloring to create the effect of a bleeding brain.