Beware of the Candy Corn Cocktail

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Two martini glasses, surrounded by scattered pieces of candy corn.  Photo by Cecilia Kennedy

Candy corn may be considered Halloween’s cruelest trick, hiding at the bottom of a treat-filled bag, but throwing a handful of that candy corn into 10 ounces of vodka makes everything worse. I had to hold onto my mad scientist’s hat and my stomach after attempting to enjoy candy corn, the way many people enjoy fruits and vegetables: If eating fruits/vegetables/candy corn is boring or distasteful, try fruits/vegetables/candy corn incorporated into vodka. Or not.

According to Bettycrocker.com, the cooler, younger, drunken sister of the Betty Crocker Cookbook, the candy corn cocktail begins with candy corn infused vodka. When I first looked at the recipe, I kind of missed the measurement for the candy corn. Apparently I needed a cup of it, but I just saw “candy corn” and “vodka” and used my “best judgment,” which is often questionable, especially when I’m around vodka.

In any case, here are my mad scientist’s lab notes for what happened when I dropped a handful of candy corn into just over 10 ounces of vodka, sealed it in a jar, and let it sit for about 4 hours.

Hour one: The candy corn is just sitting there in the vodka. I wonder if it will turn the vodka a different color or if I’ll have to add food dye later on. Should it be orange? Yes, I think it should be orange. What’s the formula again? Red and yellow. Yes I think those two colors make orange.

Hour two: Things are getting weird. I can see white, filmy, wispy ghost-like things peeling away from the candy corn. I think it’s the wax coating separating from the candy. I will definitely need to strain this mixture well. Also, the entire thing is turning orange. No need for food dye.

Hour three: I’m tempted to just stop the experiment. More ingredients seem to be peeling away from the candy corn and floating around in the jar. I’m not sure I’ll be able to strain some of this out.

Hour four: The candy is actually starting to dissolve and it’s not pretty. I’m wondering if this is what my stomach looks like when I eat candy corn. I’m wondering if the American Medical Association recommends candy corn. . . . . . .

Bettycrocker.com suggests that I could leave the candy corn in the vodka for over four hours. Four hours is the minimum, but I start straining the vodka and dumping it into jars just at the four-hour mark. I do this about four times and then reseal the vodka in a jar.

Later in the evening, I follow the rest of the recipe—at least I think I’m following it. In order to make two drinks, I use one cup of the candy corn infused vodka and ½ cup of pineapple juice. I pour the mixture into a shaker and add ice. Then, I shake the mixture really well and strain it into two glasses.

The result is . . . beautifully horrific. The concoction is a bewitching and delightful orange, but the taste, well, to quote my husband, “It tastes like hand sanitizer.” I guess I’ve been serving hand sanitizer a lot lately because we know exactly what that flavor is. In any case, we spit the cocktail into the sink, pour the mixture down the drain, and cleanse our palates with the pineapple juice. And, I should have known better. According to a highly reliable study I’ve just discovered through the power of my own imagination, four out of five mad scientists conclude that candy corn is best when it’s eaten alone and not dissolved in vodka. In the footnotes of the study, published in The Mad Scientists’ Cooperative Extension Bartenders’ Association  all five experts agree that they could possibly repeat the experiment with tequila. So, it looks like I have plans for next weekend.

Your Turn: Do you have a favorite Halloween drink?

 

 

Published by ckennedy

Author of the DIY blog: Fixin' Leaks and Leeks. Paper/Rock Writing Consultation, Sole Proprietor.

49 thoughts on “Beware of the Candy Corn Cocktail”

  1. I love candy corn and simultaneously feel ashamed about it 😂 I would have tried this out but it sounds like the results were repulsive. I wonder what all was actually stripping off of the candy corn?! I’m suddenly very concerned about what I may have put my body through in years’ worth of seasonal consumption.

    This was hilarious, thanks for sharing and the warning! 🎃

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    1. I’ve grown to like candy corn more and more–I just can’t eat very much of it because it’s very sweet and chocolate is a little more exciting. Yes, the results were not great, but it’s very possible that I followed the directions incorrectly. So glad you enjoyed the post:)

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  2. Wow I don´t know about this corn cocktail and it could be a dejavú experience and when samhain is falling in the north of Spain Galicia you can be drinking a beverage similar to grog called “Queimada” and heating body is a aftermaths.

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    1. Yes–the candy corn cocktail was interesting to say the least. It didn’t taste very good, but it’s quite possible that I didn’t follow the directions very well. It was fun to try though!

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    1. It was Bettycrocker.com’s fault. The picture looked great and the idea of a candy corn cocktail looked wonderful. I’m pretty sure the drink is good. I just maybe didn’t follow the directions correctly–it was fun to try though. Cheers!

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  6. As far as I know, we don’t get candy corn in Australia. Because pumpkins are an autumn fruit, we import them for Australians who want to undertake pumpkin art at this time of year.

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    1. Interesting! I didn’t know that pumpkins were imported. We have tons of them around here, but we haven’t gotten ours yet. We like to get them a little later in October so that they’ll last through Thanksgiving by the end of November. Also, the kids in the neighborhood like to smash the pumpkins sitting on porches. It hasn’t happened to us yet, but it could happen any year. Thanks for the visit!

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      1. There’s an abundance of the normal varieties here like Kent and Butternut. But those big round orange on the outside ones you use for carving aren’t grown here and if they were we’d have them in Autumn rather than Spring.
        I wish we had a Thanksgiving tradition. It would be nice to have a day when we celebrated reconcilliation with Indigenous Australians.

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  7. haha! a very fun experiment and story!
    I’d say Betty had to be more than half-crocked to think of this! Maybe a couple of those cinnamon Red Hots, but I guess that’s already been done, Fireball Whiskey. My favorite Halloween drink is cider, heated up with a cinnamon stick, and then, instead of hand sanitizer, a shot of bourbon, and served in a pumpkin, with no straw.
    OK, I made up that pumpkin part, but the drink is really good.

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    1. I love cinnamon red hots and there’s a cinnamon liquor I really enjoy this time of year, but it’s hard to find it in Washington where I live for some reason. Your Halloween drink sounds much better–I’m going to have to try that one–and serving it in a pumpkin is brilliant!

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  8. It looks lovely but your description of the soaking candy was a turn-off right there. Yikes. I’m not a fan of candy corn and having experimented a lot with the bank canvas nature of vodka (works really well with raspberries – soak them for about a month), I would imagine that yes, it tastes the way hand sanitizer perhaps smells?? 😀

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    1. I’m pretty sure I didn’t follow the directions well, so others may actually enjoy it. I may take up the experiment again, but I’ll need at least a week to get the mental image of the dissolving candy corn out of my mind. Thanks for visiting:)

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  10. Ha, that’s funny! When we were in Alaska, we had Marshmallow vodka–the bartender said they’d ordered it by mistake and no one would drink it, so he gave us free shots. I thought it was OK–might be great in hot chocolate, but candy corn? I draw the line there!

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  11. No candy corn in UK either, I guess the drink is supposed to end up as a liqueur? Halloween not really the big event despite the hype – it’s still bonfire night (5th Nov) at least south of the border and hot drinks are best.

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  15. I use to work in a sweet shop and only got to try candy corn as we stocked American sweets. And I do love it. I’ve tried making flavoured vodka with sweets, but never very successfully. Usually choose the wrong thing and they fizz up like Mount Vesuvius!

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