A Terrifying Cocktail—Honoring Art the Clown
The Rise of a New Face of Horror
If you’ve spent any time on the internet or anywhere near a Spirit Halloween store, you’d likely know about the (relatively) new icon among us. His black and white exterior, silently sardonic attitude, and moments of true silliness punctuated by scenes of immense brutality have cemented this character into the ranks of legends.
For any horror movie fanatic like myself, the likes of Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, Ghostface, and Jigsaw have been engrained so deeply within our culture that they’ve grown to be household names. And now, Art the Clown stands proudly among them.
While Art the Clown has existed in some form since Damien Leone’s 2008 short film, The 9th Circle, his rise has grown at an insanely rapid pace over the recent years. Thanks to 2016’s Terrifier, Art the Clown was finally introduced as a central character to the plot. Made for a mere $35,000, Terrifier is the north star of what indie filmmaking has the ability to do. Quickly established as a cult classic, Damien began working towards getting more black and white (and red) on the silver screen. Now, the third installment of the franchise is mere days away. With a budget of $2 million, Art’s influence has taken the world by storm. Spirit Halloween has devoted entire sections of their store to this franchise. From costumes to decor, drinkware to slippers, you can find Art in every possible form. You can even buy Art as a character in Call of Duty (which, side note, I WILL be buying him…).
David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown in Terrifier 2, image via IMDb.
A Drink to Numb The Pain
Now, how to commemorate Terrifier in a drinkable manner? The cocktail I came up with for (mostly) the second film may be the singular most overly complicated drink I have ever had the fortune of formulating in my silly little brain. Nearly every ingredient and/or preparation is a direct callback to Art, Damien, and the film(s). I would typically discuss this all after the drink but there’s too many intricate references and explaining jokes always makes them funnier. Obviously.
Let’s start with the creator of all of this madness: Damien Leone. Born and raised in Staten Island, the base of this cocktail is inspired by the South Beach, a drink named for a neighborhood on the east side of Staten Island. It was created by Dale DeGroff in New York City in the early ‘90s. It is composed of Amaretto, Campari, orange juice, and simple syrup.
But that’s not good enough, let’s go deeper.
The syrup for this drink contains two main ingredients, one of which is sweet potato. If you’ve seen the second Terrifier film, you’d know Sienna’s mother absolutely LOVES potatoes. She could shove them in her face all day…
The second main ingredient of the syrup works in tandem with a preparation method to culminate in another reference. In the second movie, a young boy enjoys a wonderful bowl of Art Crispies, a “bloody rice cereal with marshmallows.” Because of that, it only makes sense to create everyone’s new favorite Thanksgiving side dish turned syrup: A sweet potato and marshmallow syrup.
But how would one get rice into a cocktail? Seems too strange. Alas, it isn’t. Within recent years, “mixologists” have been making rice-washing cocktails. It’s a step where you stir a cocktail in rice before straining and enjoying it. The thought is that the washed starches from the rice combine with the cocktail to add a luxurious mouthfeel. It’s arguable whether or not it really works, but the thought is what counts.
The final important reference within this cocktail is one of the two instances in atomization on top of the finished cocktail. For reference, an atomizer is just a little spritzer for a liquid. On top of this cocktail, there is a spritz of a Salt and Black Pepper Tincture. Why? Well, if you’ve seen the second film, you know that Art comes back to… well… to rub salt in the wound, if you will. Damien and David, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for that scene. It may have been one of the most vile, gruesome, and hilarious scenes that has ever blessed a screen.
There are a few more references here and there in this drink that I will break down below, but they require far less explanation than the ones above. Below, I will list two versions of this drink. One is for my own fun. It’s the complicated one that likely no one will make. The other is a more reasonable “make this at home” version. With that, I give you “A Piece of Art.”
A PIECE OF ART
1.25 oz Bourbon
0.5 oz Amaretto
0.5 oz Sweet Potato & Marshmallow Syrup*
0.75 oz Orange Juice
4 Dashes of Angostura Bitters
Dash of Black Food Coloring**
Egg White**
Salt & Black Pepper Spray
Peychaud's Bitters Spray***
Garnished with an Eyeball****
In a cocktail shaker, add the Bourbon, Amaretto, Sweet Potato & Marshmallow Syrup, Orange Juice, Angostura Bitters, Black Food Coloring, and a quarter cup of rice. Stir all of the ingredients together with the rice. Double strain the ingredients away from the rice into a clean container.
Now that your cocktail is rice-washed, add your mixture back into your clean cocktail shaker and shake vigorously over ice. Double strain into a coupe glass.
Once again, clean your cocktail shaker and add one egg white, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and one small ice cube. Dry shake until the egg white has significantly thickened into a froth and the ice cube has entirely dissolved. Pour this on top of the cocktail.
You are nearing the end of your cocktail preparation. Grab both of your atomizers (or anything to top the drink with these two ingredients) and spritz the top of the egg white with the Salt & Black Pepper Tincture and the Peychaud's.
Finally, crown your king with its eyeball and enjoy.
David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown in Terrifier 2, image via IMDb.
FURTHER REFERENCE & SYRUP CREATION
*To make the Sweet Potato & Marshmallow Syrup: Add two cups of water and one peeled and sliced sweet potato into a pot. Boil over medium heat until the potato becomes tender. Pour the liquid through a collider to remove the large chunks of sweet potato. Before transferring out of the new container, squeeze the excess liquid from the sweet potatoes. Now, pour the sweet potato water through a fine mesh strainer to remove the smaller pieces. You should be left with around 1 cup of liquid. Add this liquid back to a pot along with 1.5 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 3/4 cup of marshmallows, and a half cup of brown sugar. Bring back to a simmer and continue to cook until the marshmallows have fully dissolved.
**The split preparation is for a very specific reason. While the cocktail becomes as black as night, the frothed egg white topper will be pristinely white. This is all done to give a distinct black and white color separation to the drink to resemble Art’s costume.
***The Campari spray over top of the frothed egg white is not entirely necessary but it will give a fun bloody look to the whole drink.
****The eyeball garnish is for Art’s doctor-like abilities to replace his own eyeball on a whim.
A SIMPLIFIED VERSION
1.25 oz Bourbon
0.5 oz Amaretto
0.5 oz Sweet Potato & Marshmallow Syrup
0.75 oz Orange Juice
4 Dashes of Angostura Bitters
Dash of Black Food Coloring
Egg White
In a cocktail shaker, combine the Bourbon, Amaretto, Sweet Potato & Marshmallow Syrup, Orange Juice, Orange Bitters, the Black Food Coloring, and an egg white. Dry shake vigorously. Add ice and shake again. Double strain into a coupe glass and garnish with an eyeball.
Article by Noah Welter
Noah J. Welter is a Pittsburgh based bartender and film artist. His cocktail creations have been featured throughout the world in a multitude of bars and immersive events. Noah takes a distinctly unique approach to the creation of his cocktails by combining his love for film and cocktail culture, historically linking them together. To find more of his work, drink and otherwise, you can visit www.noahjwelter.com.
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