Pumpkin Martini Garnish

Always on the hunt for a new pumpkin martini garnish.  I stumbled on these Halloween Peeps Tombstones in the grocery store.    Not too big a fan of extruded marshmallows, but these worked surprisingly well and they were a hit.  Just take a sharp knife and cut a slot in the bottom and slide it over the rim of the glass.

This is the package I found:

This just in.... from Distillery Trail, a Pumpkin Old Fashioned Cocktail!

I'm a fan of the cocktail known as the Old Fashioned.    Especially a particular recipe that uses rum and rye as the base.   But being a bigger fan of all-things-pumpkin, I can't wait to try this version.  

From Natalie Migliarini at Distillery Trail, comes a recipe for a Pumpkin Old Fashioned.

Now I need to make a run to the store for some pumpkin butter.

Check out the Pumpkin Old Fashioned recipe here.

Spherified Pumpkin Balls - Engineer Pub

Four thousand seven hundred ninety-nine miles away from me, at the Engineer Pub in London, "pumpkin balls" are being prepped for Halloween cocktails.    This brilliant image shown here came via twitter, with the tease, "Making pumpkin balls for Halloween..."   I replied hoping for more information, and got a quick response adding, "@antlerhandler mango bellini cocktails with 'spherefied' mango to celebrate the night of the wicked and weird!"

Spherification has been a hot topic in the high tech cooking circles over the last couple of years.   Seattle has been the epicenter of some of the experimentation that has been taken place.  I've been meaning to experiment with spherification but hadn't made it there yet.   Seeing this picture provides some great incentive.

If I left for London now, I think I could make it in time...

Update: This just in....  Here is the cocktail with the pumpkin balls.

Via: The Engineer Pub