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’Tis the season for sipping creepy cocktails with the undead at these Halloween spook-easies slinging boo-zy beverages around town. (Can you even say you’re a hardcore Halloween-er if you haven’t downed a Corpse Reviver mixed by a zombie while surrounded by fake cobwebs and blood?)
Here’s where to get a (scared) stiff drink this month, from a haunted house “shriekeasy” to a year-round horror bar to a tropical tiki nightmare.
B & GC: Boys & Ghouls Club
- Where: 249 Columbine St., Denver (Cherry Creek)
- When: Through October 31
For a classy (but still ghastly) speakeasy experience, duck into the catacombs beneath the Halcyon hotel in Cherry Creek to B & GC, known as Boys & Ghouls Club this month. Thursdays are the best nights to go, when the tarot readings will reveal your fate and maybe even expose some skeletons. And skip the menu here—the clairvoyant bartenders will summon the drink meant just for you.
13th Floor Haunted House: Shriekeasy Bar
- Where: 3400 E. 52nd Ave., Denver (Elyria-Swansea)
- When: Select nights through November 9
What’s better than a haunted house filled with deranged butchers, possessed demons, evil clowns, and vengeful witches? A haunted house with all that and booze. Head inside the iconic 13th Floor Haunted House, where you can visit the Shot Spot Arcade Secret Bar to rev up your liquid courage, then settle your nerves post-spooking at the dimly lit Shriekeasy Bar. Or if you’re not in the mood for a scare, you can head straight to the bar without purchasing a haunted house ticket.
The Crypt
- Where: 1618 E. 17th Ave., Denver (City Park West)
- When: 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Friday; 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday and Sunday
Every day is Halloween at the Crypt, where you can get a Death on the Beach or Levitated Corpse cocktail as easily in April as October. So you know they go even harder during Halloween season, when the Grim Reaper energy gets cranked up to bloodcurdling. The Crypt will host 31 events for the 31 sinister days of October, like slasher movies, drag shows, and dance parties (a modest request: the “Thriller” dance, perhaps?). What’s not so scary here? The prices, where even the most expensive cocktail tops out at 10 bones.
Adrift Tiki Bar: Nightmare in Paradise
- Where: 218 S. Broadway, Denver (Speer)
- When: Through November 1
Devilish things are afoot at Adrift. Nearly a dozen ghoulish cocktails, shots, punch bowls, and mocktails are crashing the menu, and if the Frog’s Breath tiki drink (made with Puerto Rican rum, overproof Jamaican rum, green herbal liqueur, pineapple, basil, and lime) doesn’t get you in the spirit, the dangling skeletons and fog machine certainly will. Visit on Red Rum Wednesdays to catch a horror movie to go with your discounted drink.
The Electric Cure
- Where: 5350 W. 25th Ave., Edgewater
- When: Through November 2
Pearl clutchers shouldn’t pass through the cursed doors of this satanic, bird-themed Edgewater bar any time of year, but the easily offended should definitely stay away this month, when the Electric Cure in Edgewater and sister bars Honor Farm and Hell or High Water Tiki (both in the same LoDo space) go all-in on the bewitching. All month, enjoy the Little Bar of Horrors takeover at all three watering holes, with menus of dreadfully named concoctions, macabre décor, and frightening events.
Lady Jane: Black Lagoon
- Where: 2021 W. 32nd Ave., Denver (LoHi)
- When: Through November 1
New Orleans–based Halloween pop-up bar franchise Black Lagoon (think: Christmastime Miracle bar but spooky) brings its scary-season cocktails to Denver this year (and to 37 other cities across the U.S.). Lady Jane gets decidedly unladylike while hosting the pop-up, turning glamorously goth and serving frighteningly delicious drinks like the rice-washed, pumpkin-y Creature’s Curse and the black-glittered Midnight Forever.
Poka Lola Social Club: Poka Luna
- Where: 1850 Wazee St., Denver (LoDo)
- When: Through October 31
At Poka Lola Social Club’s Halloween pop-up, spirits come all forms boozy and ghostly. Sip your way through nearly 20 themed cocktails, mocktails, and shots while you tempt fate on Ouija Wednesdays, shop a spooky artisan market, attend the daily Witching Hour, or check out any of the other month-long thrills. Part haunted house, part eerie cocktail experience, it’s only once a year your drink will be served out of a skull-shaped glass or brimming with pitch-black fluid, so get to it.
