Red Sangria Cocktail (or Mocktail) Recipe & How to Make Edible Bloody Halloween Eyeballs

This sangria cocktail recipe is a grotesquely fun blood red Halloween drink that’s fruity, subtly spiced, and surprisingly delicious. You won’t believe how easy it is to make, and simple it is to transform it into a mocktail. And for the pièce de résistance, learn how to make edible bloody Halloween eyeballs with just three ingredients!

A couple years ago my niece and I made a Murder Cake for Halloween. We went all out on it, and it was truly epic! (If you want, you can see more pictures of it here.)

It was a four-layer cake with alternating layers of fudgy brownies and red velvet cake with vanilla buttercream. It was decorated with sugar glass shards stabbing into the top, and edible blood oozing out.

Oh, it was a sight for sore eyes. As you can well imagine, it was horrific!

The truth is, we had so much fun with it. We wanted something spooky and grotesque and put a lot of creative thinking into it. And then we planned it. The making of it was quite a process too, and because it involved making candy (in the form of the sugar glass shards), it needed a bit of both science and finesse. It was a learning experience for both my niece and I.

Since then, I’ve wanted to make something else as creepy, gross, and Halloween-ish as that. The Murder Cake was the first Halloween recipe we made, and I’ll admit, we set the bar pretty high! I haven’t really come close to making anything as impressively repulsive since then.

That is, until these bloody eyeballs! You can use them in any number of different ways, for example, to decorate a cake or cupcakes, or as part of a Halloween party buffet line. But I think they’re absolutely perfect on top of a deep, dark red sangria cocktail for Halloween!

Ingredients

This red sangria cocktail recipe features the fruity full-bodied flavor of red wine, sweetness of cherry juice, and depth from spiced rum. You can use regular dark or light rum instead, but I think the warm spices in spiced rum add to the fall vibes, which makes this cocktail even more perfect for Halloween. And by all means, if you don’t like rum, go with brandy and add a few cinnamon sticks.

Or if you prefer a mocktail, check out the Notes in the recipe card below for easy instructions on how to make this into a non-alcoholic Halloween drink.

And I’m completely certain that the blood-clotted eyes will surprise you – they’re made of canned lychee fruit, fresh blueberries, and cherry preserves – and are completely delicious!

This recipe has two components, the edible bloody eyeballs and the spiced sangria. Both are very easy to make!

How to Make a Red Wine Sangria Cocktail

1. Stir together all ingredients in a large pitcher.
2. Chill for at least 2 hours, but up to 5 days.

How to Make Edible Bloody Halloween Eyeballs

1. Spoon about 1/3 teaspoon of cherry preserves into the cavity of each lychee fruit.
2. Push 1 or 2 blueberries into the cavity of each lychee on top of the cherry preserves. (I like to use 2 blueberries so the top one almost looks like it’s popping out a little bit.)

To Serve

1. Pour the sangria into glasses. You can use wine glasses, goblets, or whatever else you fancy.
2. Skewer 2 bloody eyeballs on 1 toothpick.
3. Serve each glass of sangria topped with 1 toothpick of bloody eyeballs.

Storage and Make-Ahead Options

The eyeballs will taste okay for a couple days stored in the fridge. However, the cherry preserves start to seep out after 1 or 2 hours (and the eyes start to look bloodshot), so I recommend making these about an hour before you want to serve them.

On the other hand, you can store the sangria for up to 5 days in the fridge.

Tips for Making a Halloween Cocktail

• Make these bloody eyeballs no matter what the cocktail is. They’re easy to make, and even if you don’t use them as a garnish for other Halloween drinks, you can put them in a dish nearby to really set the mood.
• Use dry ice. The “smoky” vibe from dry ice really bumps up the creepy factor! You can put dry ice into your drinks, or put it in a shallow dish of water nearby for ambiance. (Remember to be careful with dry ice and never handle it with bare hands.) To see how dry ice looks in a drink, check out Polyjuice Potion.
• Skip the booze and make mocktails instead of cocktails. If you’re having a kids Halloween party or just want to offer an alcohol-free option, it’s easy to make this cocktail into a mocktail. To do so, use pomegranate juice or cranberry juice instead of the red wine. Use ginger ale instead of the spiced rum.

Tips for Making Edible Bloody Eyeballs for Halloween

• Technically, you can use any type of red jam or preserves you like to make edible bloody eyeballs with lychee fruit. However, my preference is cherry preserves for two reasons: 1) there are no seeds, and 2) the little bits of cherries look like blood clots. It’s disgusting, but absolutely perfect for the look we’re going for!
• In case you need a specific number of bloody eyeballs. Depending on how many lychee fruits are in the can, you should get about 20 to 25 bloody eyeballs from this recipe.
• These bloody eyeballs sink, they don’t float. This is why I skewer them and serve them on a toothpick on top of the drink. Another option is to serve this drink with ice and place the eyeballs on top of the ice (but you’ll need a lot of ice to keep these afloat, and of course this will water down the drink).

Red Wine Sangria Cocktail Recipe FAQs

More Halloween Recipes to Make

• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies – A delicious fall twist on a classic favorite!
• Spider Eggs – These avocado and wasabi Halloween deviled eggs are a delicious appetizer and the method for dying the eggs is so clever!
• Witch Finger Cookies – These are the perfect combination of Halloween creepiness + sweet deliciousness.
• Gillywater – For the Harry Potter fans, this drink is sure to excite. It looks like it came straight from the swamp!
• Pumpkin Queso Dip with Spooky Dippers – Cheesy dip gets a little savory pumpkin flair, and the Halloween factor gets bumped up even more with homemade Halloween-shaped tortilla chips!
• Ghoulish Skull and Pumpkin Soup – Is it weird that I think this looks absolutely delicious?! Lol! All joking aside, the skulls and pumpkins are adorably spooky. And after eating a nutritious meal like this for dinner, it’s not so bad to indulge in a candy bar or two, right?