Last week I was sitting around trying to think of something different to do for halloween, and the idea came to me. Something that would look particularly creepy, and be unusual… Can you guess the secret ingredient?

Ever had Bubble Tea? It’s made with large tapioca pearls, and has a really interesting look. I figured there’s no reason we couldn’t make some fun halloween drinks/shots/cocktails with the tapioca pearls. A trip to the local Whole Foods yeilded a bag of large pearls. So I tried some experiments (Note, the amount shown here is what I got from maybe 1/4 cup of uncooked pearls).
First I made a test batch — following this recipe to cook the tapioca. You’re supposed to soak them in a sugar syrup, and I had on had some really bright blue drink mixer, which I figured would be perfect. Voila, bright blue translucent drink pearls with a slightly sweet flavor. Next I tried several other ’soakers’ to see what I would get. I figured a red flavor would be nice, so I soaked some in grenadine. I also mixed some of the grenadine and the blue syrup to get a black/purple color. Someone suggested soaking in alcohol, so I tried green creme de menthe, black rum, jagermeister, and orange liqueur. (Click through to see them labeled on the flickr pic)

Removed from the soaking liquids this morning… Note that (with the exception of the creme de menthe, the alcohol soaked pearls became smaller, harder, and opaque. The others are more transparent and jelly like. Interesting effects, you could obviously work with either result. Click through on the picture for a better view.

The best thing about these is they can basically be added to any drink or shot where the flavors will work. They also don’t have a ton of taste, so they won’t mess up a drink. Add to a basic martini or cosmopolitan, for example. (I called this one my Caviar martini).

Shooter ideas:
#Frog Egg Shooter – Whitish opaque pearls (these were the orange liqueur ones) in a Midori shot
#Fish Egg Shooter – Your favorite clear pink shooter with a mix of pink and white balls.
#Or how about Grasshopper Eye Shooter (basic Grasshopper recipe with Green Creme de Menthe balls)
#Blue berry-flavored balls in a Grand Marnier shot. The blue is my favorite — I think these would also be fabulous in a vodka tonic…

Note: You could easily just make colored sugar syrups with food coloring and get any look you wanted. You could leave out the alcohol entirely for fun kids drinks too.

I also love the idea of just making dishes of different colors of these and setting them out by the drink station, so people can add their own!

Anyway, hope you enjoy this little addition to your halloween festivities. Tell your friends!

More Halloween Cocktails
More Halloween Food

PS – I’ve written this up as an Instructable!

These might be related posts, too:

1. Halloween Wrap-up – Party Food
2. Illustration Friday: Similar
3. Halloween Cocktail Roundup 1
4. Halloween Food – Sweet Sushi
5. Halloween Cocktail Fun