Overview
Attention ghostbusters and costume enthusiasts: your favourite season is fast approaching. Trick or treating might not have exactly caught on here, but after a couple of years sans socialising, we'll be damned if we won't use this Halloween as an excuse for a celebration.
If your only experience with Halloween shindigs is hot and crowded parties filled with half-assed costumes, throw those preconceived notions aside. In 2022, we're all about sophisticated-yet-spooky soirees.
We turned to the devilish experts at Devil's Vine for help on how to host the ultimate Halloween dinner party — complete with on-theme food offering and of course, delicious (and affordable) drops.
SET THE SCENE
Any great Halloween dinner party relies on one thing — atmosphere. Concrete Playground's Halloween aficionados have two rules: no tacky decorations (we don't want to see even a hint of a plastic lantern) and vibes on from entry.
That means going all out and using all the tools you have at your disposal. Maybe you tape the front section of your house off with crime-scene tape, have fake blood tricking out of the bathroom sinks and doors, or use carefully placed dry-ice canisters to create a smoke-filled scene.
The pièce de résistance is of course the dinner table, where you can really let your imagination run wild. Your theme? Elegance meets eeriness — think of the dinner party thrown in a hunted mansion, with sexy candlelight and Addams Family vibes (Morticia and Gomez are couple goals, after all). We recommend showing your guests to their spots with blood-splattered name cards written in delicate cursive. For your table setting, opt for contrasting gold and black cutlery and crockery topped with one single stemmed red rose for horror Bachelor-realness.
Scatter the rest of the table with a mix of candelabras, roses and bottles of Devil's Vine wine — you could even drip candle wax down the sides of the bottles before guests arrive. Then not only do you have a bold red ready for your guests to sip, you have an elegant (but spooky) scene setter. That's what we call a win-win.
EAT OR BE EATEN
Embrace the opportunity to impress your friends with your cooking prowess (be it newly learned or well-honed). This is not the time to bung a plate of saussy rolls down and call that dinner. Instead, you'll be providing a delicious and impressive three-course meal, while having a little fun playing with the food offering — sorry, mum.
Kick things off with an array of finger foods for nibbling: think on-theme snacks like smoky pumpkin devilled eggs, a 'gory guts' tear-and-share pizza bread and of course, charcuterie and cheese boards to accompany your Devil's Vine vino — just make sure you get an extra-mouldy blue option on there to add a deliciously ghoulish twist to proceedings.
When serving the main course, keep things simple: a rare bloody scotch fillet and a delicious roast jack-o'-lantern pumpkin salad are sure to please the crowd. Or take things to the dark side by opting for a squid ink linguine — the contrast of black pasta on a white plate creates a striking scene with minimal effort. For dessert, serve a decadent dark chocolate cake, bloody jam desserts and a candy station with goody bags for trick-or-treating — adult style.
More important are the beverages — any good dinner party can really ride or die on the drink selection. For your signature cocktail, whip up this impressive-looking but actually very easy 'bloody' Halloween sangria, using one of the bold South Australian varietals from Devil's Vine, such as a shiraz, cab sauv, merlot or red blend. The slightly sweet yet intense flavour lends itself perfectly to a sangria — as does the wine's sub-$15 price tag.
If you have the time and energy, you can also try your hand at creating a toil-and-trouble atmosphere with a smoked cocktail like this unorthodox old fashioned — to finish things off, serve digestifs in vials like you're a crazed scientist (rather than just a slightly tipsy one).
WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?
While the main attraction at your dinner party will be the scintillating conversation, it doesn't hurt to have a few entertainment options up your sleeve. Keep the atmosphere rolling with a groovy horror-themed playlist — the one below is our personal favourite.
It's also a great idea to have some camp horror films on in the background — leave them on mute with subtitles on, then turn up the more iconic scenes for everyone to enjoy. Some of our faves include What We Do in the Shadows, Beetlejuice, Shaun of the Dead, the OG Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, Ready or Not and Hocus Pocus.
Once the dining portion of the evening is done, it's time for a game or two. Keep things simple and effective with the forehead detective game where every guest is a different horror creature or scary villain — think Ghostface, the Boogieman, Jigsaw, Patrick Bateman from American Psycho…you get the gist.
If you want to really impress, invest in hiring a specialist company to run a murder mystery evening. With someone due to die during dinner, all the dinner party guests must figure out the killer using their new personas. You can run it yourself using a guide like this one, but we're guessing it might be less stressful to sit back and let someone else handle the admin.
Then you sit back, sip your sangria and admire your dinner party festivities feeling satisfied — and start planning next year.
Image credit: Chester Newling
This Halloween, make a date with the Devil's Vine. Available for RRP$11.99 per bottle at Dan Murphy's and RRP$14.99 at per bottle at BWS, head online or in-store to check it out.