At Gintime Towers we love any excuse for a party. Here’s our guide to the spookiest celebrations of the year!

Drinks

Spooky Spiced Gin Punch

What better than a cauldron full of spiked punch to get your guests warmed up?

• 1 litre good quality apple juice
• 3 tablespoons Seville orange marmalade
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 cloves
• 1 star anise
• Small knob of fresh root ginger, sliced
• 1 orange, quartered
• 150ml gin

Place all the ingredients apart from the gin into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Simmer for two minutes then remove from the heat and leave covered for 24 hours to allow the flavours to infuse. Add the gin and heat gently. Do not allow the punch to come to the boil.

Ghoulish Lychee Martini

• 40ml gin
• 15ml lychee liqueur
• Splash vermouth
• Tinned lychee and rinsed black olive to serve

Shake the gin, liqueur and vermouth with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Put a black olive inside a lychee and serve in the martini. This will look like an eye is floating in the drink! Scary!

Costumes

Respectable ladies seem to view Halloween parties as their big chance to dress like a slut. Whether you go as a witch, cat or devil you must make sure you aim for the ‘off to the swinger’s ball’ version. For those less inclined towards fake eyelashes and spike heels a white nightie and lashings of fake blood will turn you into Carrie or simply wear your normal clothes, pop in a pair of dead eye contact lenses and go as a Zombie.

Boys! Stag nights not withstanding, this is your one chance to cross-dress out in the open. My only advice for you is: enjoy!

Pumpkins

The best way to make a pumpkin look super spooky is to use the stem as a nose, as we have done in our picture. You can still put a candle in by cutting a lid where you want the top of the pumpkin to be. We also cut a slice off the bottom of the pumpkin to stabilise it. For some more inspired carving ideas visit the President Obama tribute site Yes We Carve and Martha Stewart.

Décor

All you really need to do here is get some fake cobwebs and spiders, or better still don’t clean your house for a whole year! If you’ve got £100 million lying around this would look pretty classy.

Food

Simply put ‘witch’s’, ‘ghoulish’ or ‘spooky’ before the name of normal food. For example: Ghoulish Curry, Spooky Sausages and Witch’s Baked Potatoes. Easy!

Games

So, you’ve got all your friends (and perhaps some family members) dressed as hookers, all merried up on spiked punch and getting over excited about the hauntingly named edibles. At this point it seems not at all reckless to introduce some party games. What could possibly go wrong? Just make sure you aren’t the squiffiest person there and have a camera ready. Here are some fun ideas.