Halloween Cocktails: "The Bay Harbour Butcher" by Shaun Layton

Our drinks are slowly getting more violent as we creep ever close to Halloween. Today's contribution comes from Shaun Layton of L'Abattoir, located in Blood Alley in Vancouver's Gastown. He shares his bloody creation named after the AMC series, "Dexter," about a blood spatter specialist with the Miami Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer. This cocktail is a fruity and herbal twist on the pisco sour, and Shaun incorporates some interesting ingredients, including Liquore Strega. This bright yellow herbal liqueur was supposedly created by an Italian witch coven in the 1800's. "Strega," actually meaning "witch" in Italian, was originally medicinal in nature, but became later known as a kind of love-potion. It is said that if a couple drinks Strega together they will be forever united.
(I will be talking a little more about Strega before Halloween).

The Bay Harbour Butcher

45ml pisco
30ml lemon juice
10ml Liquore Strega
10ml Campari
Dash of raspberry puree
1 egg white

Combine all ingredients and dry shake, then shake again with ice. 
Fine strain into a chilled coup and make blood-splatter-like dashes on top of the froth with Peychaud's bitters.

If you don't have raspberry liqueur handy, a great substitute (and one I use in Clover Clubs as well) is the award-winning Raspberry Liqueur by Okanagan Spirits. It's a surprisingly tart and dry liqueur made with real raspberries.

You can see Shaun's other contributions to this site here:
Maraschino March
Amaro April
Fernet February
The Butchertown

Stay tuned - there's a final Halloween drink still to come!

The Fall Series:

You can see the series introduction here
and more terrible Halloween cocktails here
"Death & Oranges" by Donnie Wheeler
"Jones' Bitter Aperitif" by Evelyn Chick 
"The Satchmo" by Simon Ogden 
"Dark City" by Jay Jones 
Classic Halloween Cocktails 
"The Giant Huntsman" by Lauren Mote 
"A Nightmare On Juniper Street" by Shea Hogan


[[ "Dexter" image belongs to AMC
cocktail photography by Shaun Layton ]]