Fabulous Find For Whisky Lovers This Halloween

I love entertaining and I especially love the holiday themes. Earlier in the week I hosted a pumpkin carving party with Halloween themed wines and treats. I was looking around in my liquor cabinet and saw the eyes of the skeleton on the bottle of this Smokehead Whisky peering back. I pulled it out, sat it on the counter, and by the end of the night every bit of it was gone. It is a Fabulous Find for whisky lovers this Halloween.

Smokehead Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky is from Scotland and is part of Ian Macleod Distillers. The distillery sent me this bottle to review for a magazine story I was writing on whisky and it was begging to be rediscovered for Halloween. Old tequila casks are used in the aging process and you get a hint of the herbal spice from it.

I had two whiskey lovers at my party and they were a bit skeptical of this at first. We tried it straight up and boy did it smell peaty and smoky in the glass. However, on the palate, it was so much smoother than any of us expected. Even friends who claimed not to like Scotch were not only trying it, but also going back for more. By the end of the night, the bottle was empty and I caught someone turning it upside down to get the last drops.

It had a little bit of that signature smoky peat. However it also had some subtle sweet orange characteristics and spices like clove. One of my guests made some kind of pumpkin spice cake roll with a cream cheese frosting. Smokehead was excellent with this dessert. That is one of the many reasons it is a Fabulous Find for whisky lovers this Halloween. It runs in the $60 price range.

Timing is important when carving pumpkins for Halloween in Southwest Florida. It is so hot and humid that carving one too soon is a recipe for rot and mold. Every year, I get together with my neighbors, grab some gourds, cook some food, pour some wine and have some Halloween fun. Here are some photos of pumpkin carving at it's best and worst.

If you have ever carved pumpkins, you know that sometimes the best intentions and efforts go sideways. That is what happened to mine so I went off design and hoped for the best. Mine is the pumpkin label "creepy smile" below. For TikTok Tuesday I posted numerous videos with great ideas for pumpkin carving and decorating here. Did they help? Well, you can be the judge once you see the photos below. One tip I did try this year was cutting the hole in the pumpkin on the bottom instead of the top.

In addition, here are some cool Halloween Party recipes I posted. I tried the pumpkin pizza rolls and have some photos below. I did not follow a recipe but dumped ingredients for the stuffing in a bowl and mixed. One thing I would do differently is to add more mozzarella. They weren't quite as cheesy and gooey in the middle as I was hoping for.