Spooky Cocktail Garnish

Welcome to day four of 31 days of Halloween crafts! Today we're going to be making a spooky cocktail garnish.

Materials:

- cocktail umbrella

- powdered black food dye

- vodka

- clean paintbrush

- clementine or easy peel orange

- paring knife

First, we're going to give our cocktail umbrella a gothic makeover. Snip some crescent moon shapes along the edge of the umbrella. I like to use nail scissors for this because they have a curve in them it makes it a lot easier to cut the curved shapes.

Next snip off the little wooden tips of the umbrella to make them pointy.

Gently bend the wood into a more curved parasol type shape.

Next, mix a little bit of black powdered food dye with a tiny bit of vodka to make a paint. The reason I'm using this is because this umbrella will probably touch the cocktail so I want to make sure the ink that I'm using is definitely food safe.

Paint the umbrella. The vodka evaporates very quickly so the umbrella won't get soggy as you do this, however once the vodka evaporates the food dye will stain your hands so handle this umbrella as little as you can once it's painted. You have been warned. This will leave dye on your hands if you touch it, but this is just for aesthetics, this is not for practicality. Don't forget to paint the inside of the umbrella for the best effect.

Next, we're going to make the little pumpkin. Slice off less than half of your clementine and gently peel out the flesh from the larger half.

Stuff the clementine rind with a paper towel so that you have something to work against.

Using a sharp paring knife carefully cut out a jack-o-lantern face.

Pierce your jack-o-lantern with the umbrella and now your garnish is ready for its cocktail.