Pumpkin Martini's, Santa Ana's and Rock and Roll

Today is Friday, October 29th.  This means that it's the weekend of Halloween!  All week long here in LA the Santa Ana's have been blowing giving the air that warm, blustery, dry feeling that means fall is here and its time to celebrate the arrival of Autumn. 

Now in my short life Halloween has had many different faces.  As a really young child Halloween was spent trick or treating with my brother, Morgan, who is 3 years my junior.  Anyone who has a sibling that is close to their age you know the routine...  Said person is your best friend and greatest mortal enemy simultaneously.  You are forced to spend every waking moment with them which would often end in a brawl over who cheated on some Nintendo game and then 10 minutes later it would be as if nothing ever happened.  Now I'm not going to name name's.. (Mom, Susan!) but for some reason for 3 straight years Morgan and I were forced to wear the same costumes year after year!  I want to say it was between the ages of 8 and 11.  I remember it like it was yesterday... I was the Queen of Hearts from Alice and Wonderland and Morgan was a bum/ pirate.

My junior and high school years were spent trick or treating with friends and trolling for two things- candy and boys. 

Moving into to college years and the costumes became MUCH more scandelous and the candy was replaced with jello-shot infused ragers. (Isla Vista, CA you know who you are...)

Fast forward to present day and I'm happy to say that the alcohol has stayed but the costumes and parties have gotten much more civilized.

 Tonight I'm going to attempt to make Pumpkin Martini's!

I'm just going to go ahead and call them Pumptini's for short :)


Here's a recipe for you guys to try at home

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces of Kettle One vodka (*you can use whatever kind of Vodka you want)
• Pumpkin spice
• 1 ounce Stoli Vanil vodka
• Vanilla cocktail candy rim sugar

The mix:

• Pour all of the liquid ingredients into a shaker 1/4 full of cracked ice
• Shake, shake, shake for a minute
• Allow the shaker to rest while you rim 2 freezing martini glasses with vanilla cocktail candy rim sugar
• Strain your spiced pumpkin pie martini into your glasses
• Each glass gets a shake of pumpkin spice
• Enjoy!

Although this may seem easy enough, those of you who know me well, also know that I am NOT a chef or barista by any sense of the word but I love trying new things. So wish me luck with this!

Another fun Halloween shout out.  Tomorrow night I'm going to be in Silverlake for an All Hallows Eve Music Festival where my friends band the Muddy Reds will be playing.  If you have not seen them play before you will be in for a treat.

http://themuddyreds.bandcamp.com/

Here's the info:

 Rafa's Lounge

1836 W. Sunset Blvd

Saturday at 9:00pm - Sunday at 2:00am

Addison Strong
The Muddy Reds
Dirty Dinosaurs
Frixus
Tommy SpaSe
42 West
and more...

A $25 admission fee gets you unlimited mixed cocktails
(Whiskey, Vodka, and Rum) and beer (various) throughout
the entire night. There will also be a variety of food items and
a costume contest.

I hope that everyone has a safe, happy and heathy Halloween.  Until next time...