Beaumont's Jack-o-Lantern

When it comes to a good hand-crafted cocktail, according to the bar manager at Beaumont’s Eatery, Gavin McManes, the trick is in the treat.

“Anytime someone comes into my bar, I’m basically treating them as if they’re in my living room,” he says. “I like to treat my bar as their home away from home.”

In fact, when tricks and treats matter most, McManes comes through for his customers, offering the Jack-O-lantern again this Halloween at Beaumont’s, the usual haunt for Bird Rock’s own gaggle of ghouls, goblins and ghosts. The Jack-O-Lantern was such a scream last year, McManes says, that he’s brought it back again this year as the proper potion for celebrating the witching hour.

“We were trying to come up with a Halloween drink last year,” he says, explaining how he created the cocktail in his secret laboratory. “I try to get away from the more funky stuff and sought a more culinary bent with this drink. The idea was to incorporate pumpkin, which is a fall flavor, with the Halloween theme. Since we use Jack Daniels as the base, we thought the Jack-O-Lantern was a good name for it.”

According to McManes, a taste for pumpkin is a must for anyone trying the Jack-O-Lantern, but even for those that think whisky and pumpkin mix about as well as The Werewolf and Frankenstein’s monster, beware! This story has an unexpected twist….

“Pumpkin is definitely an underlying flavor,” he says. “But it’s a very balanced drink. The citrus balances the sweetness from the pumpkin and the whisky has such a powerful flavor that it adds to the savory character. Whereas vodka, say, would only give you the blandness to compete with the orange and pumpkin, the whisky balances out the citrus with the sweetness.”

Kitchen Proof: The perfect elixir for bringing taste buds back from the dead, McManes’s balancing trick of ingredients makes this treat worth a good howl at the moon…

HOW TO MAKE IT

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, pour:

• 2 oz. Jack Daniels
• 2 oz. Monin Pumpkin Spice Syrup
• ½ oz. Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice
• 1 dash Powdered Cinnamon

Shake ingredients, pour into martini glass, dust top with cinnamon and get ready to light your pumpkin…