It’s almost Halloween and wanted to share one of my favorite seasonal recipes, the Pomegranate Elderflower Margarita! While this is a delicious cocktail option year round, it is especially beautiful as a Halloween cocktail with black salt for a touch of spookiness. It’s also super easy to make.

Known as the “fruit of the dead” in Greek mythology, Hades used pomegranate seeds to lure Persephone back to the underworld for six months out of every year. While my main reason for creating the pomegranate elderflower margarita as a Halloween cocktail was the wonderfully dark color of the pomegranate juice, the tie in with Hades and the underworld was a spooky bonus.

Note: I originally created the Pomegranate Elderflower Margarita in 2020 as a Halloween cocktail special for So Radish in Arvada, CO. (It was a huge hit, so we’re offering it again this year, but I wanted to post the recipe here as well.) 

Making the Pomegranate Elderflower Margarita

The Ingredients

Tequila – This doesn’t necessarily need to be an expensive tequila. Just make sure whatever you buy is 100% agave and blanco (a.k.a. Silver).

Elderflower Liqueur – I always prefer Giffard, but if you can’t find it, St. Germain also works very well. Some smaller distilleries also make there own version, so depending on where you live, you might be able to find a local elderflower liqueur. Whatever you do, just stay away from The Bitter Truth Elderflower. While they have some great products in their line-up, their elderflower liqueur has a strong vegetal flavor, isn’t sweet, and tastes nothing like elderflower.

Pomegranate Juice – Pom Wonderful works great! Other brands might work fine as well, but I haven’t tested them personally.

Lime Juice – Always juice your own limes for cocktails! There is a HUGE flavor difference between fresh-squeezed and store bought. (The only bottled lime juice I’ve found that tastes fresh is Natalie’s, but it’s not widely available.)

Salting the Rim

There are two methods of rimming the glass. The easiest, and possibly most common, way is to cover a small plate with black salt, run a lime wedge along the rim of the glass, turn the glass upside down and dip it in the salt. You’ll need to to move the glass in a circular motion to get good coverage. 

The second option is to fill a second plate with a 1/4 inch of lime juice. Instead of running a lime wedge along the rim, you’ll dip the upside down glass in the lime juice before dipping it in the salt. This option will give more thorough coverage and is much quicker if you’re rimming multiple glasses. 

If you don’t have black salt, and don’t want to bother with a traditional kosher salt rim, you can just add a tiny pinch of salt when you make the cocktail instead. 

Shaking the Cocktail

Making the Pomegranate Elderflower Margarita is easy. Add all of the ingredients (except for the soda water) to a cocktail shaker and shake hard for about 20 seconds. Strain the cocktail into the rimmed glass over fresh ice. Top with a little splash of soda water.

Pre-batching for Parties

If you’re making the cocktail for a party, you can skip the shaking and add the ingredients to a pitcher or carafe. Pre-rim the glasses before the party starts and add ice just before serving.

Since you’re not shaking the cocktail for a large pre-batch, you won’t have dilution from the ice. Try going a little heavy on the “splash” of soda water instead. You can leave the soda water gradient or give each glass a light swirl with a bar spoon or straw. 

If you’ve made this Pomegranate Elderflower Margarita, please leave a comment, and don’t forget to tag us on social media at @we_make_pretty. If you’d like to explore more cocktails, checkout our Paloma or Strawberry-Infused Gin. Enjoy!

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