Serve something perfectly dark for your next soiree or dismally elegant dinner party. While all the following taste more or less as delicious as any other wine or spirit, they're sold in such incredibly cool packaging, you'll want to display the bottles on a nearby table.
Bats Blood Wine
Bats Blood wine is made in Banat, Romania (an area the makers assure us is part of historic Transylvania.) It comes elegantly packaged in a coffin-shaped, red lined box.
Crystal Head Vodka
My best friends gave me this for my birthday last year. I loved it, and rationed it as carefully as I could bear. Finally when it was empty, I found it makes a great vase for a single rose, or a Day of the Dead style marigold bouquet.
Crystal Head Vodka on Facebook
Kraken Black Spiced Rum
I love spiced rum anyway, but it doesn't hurt that this packaging design evokes Cthulhu, steampunk and Victoriana. The website has a sense of humor, too - they even make a Kraken rum app game for smartphones. Anyway, I like to serve Kraken at my cocktail parties, leaving the bottle visible on the buffet so people can enjoy the cool dark nautical label.
Kah Tequila
"Kah Tequila was designed to pay reverence and honor to Mexico and its people." This Day of the Dead-themed tequila comes packaged in beautifully decorated skull-shaped bottles. Flavors include Tequila Blanco, packaged in a white skull; Tequila Anejo in a black-and-white bottle; Tequila Reposado, in a devil-decorated bottle; and a special limited edition Tequila Extra Anejo, in a skull shaped bottle decorated with Swarovski crystals.
Vampire Vineyards
Now I know you've heard of these guys. Besides Dracula wine, Vampire wine, and Chateau du Vampire wines, they also produce Vampire vodka and Trueblood Pinot Noir. (My favorite is the Vampire Cab Sauv).
http://www.vampirevineyards.com
Vampire Vineyards, on Facebook
Also some beverages of interest:
Trader Joe's produces and sells their own "Dearly Beloved Forever Red" wine in an El Dia de Los Muertos decorated bottle. Your local store may have a bottle or two left even this long after the Halloween season, if you're lucky.
Owen Roe Winery in the Pacific Northwest bottles a Sinister Hand grenache.
I'm amused by Armida Wines' line of Poizin wine bottles.
What might you serve as dessert to go along with your creepily bottled beverages?
How about a chocolate skull?
http://www.chocolateskulls.com/
--Copyright 2012 Carrie Carolin