This spooky and fun Purple People Eater Drink is the best Low Carb Gin Cocktail to make this Halloween! Combine the beautiful Empress 1908 Gin with fresh lemon juice, our homemade sugar free keto grenadine, diet ginger beer, and top it off with a lychee and blueberry “eyeball”! At only 5 net carbs per cocktail, these purple people eater cocktails taste great, without giving you a horrific hangover, or blood sugar spike.
Have you guys caught on to just how much we love Halloween? It’s quite a lot! We love crafting spooky cocktails, dishes and desserts to get people in the Halloween spirit. It’s truly our favorite holiday, since it’s in the beautiful month of October, when the leaves change, and the air gets crisp. Then comes the creepiest time of all- Halloween! As a kid, Bri opted for Halloween parties over birthday parties, and Chamere has always been a huge fan of horror movies. We’ve taken our love of the occult and spooky things and just kind of ran with it.
When we worked with Empress 1908 Gin over the summer, we immediately knew that we would create something with it for Halloween. It’s beautiful purple hue lended itself so nicely to this super pretty (and creepy!) purple people eater cocktail! Stir in some fresh squeezed lemon juice, some homemade sugar free keto grenadine, and then top it all off with diet ginger beer and a homemade lychee eyeball. Boom! Spooky drink achieved.
Adding in the addition of a lychee fruit with a blueberry in the middle created an awesome, somewhat realistic (and totally edible!!) eyeball garnish. As are (most) of the other recipes on this website, this cocktail is low carb friendly. Any cocktail on our site will be under 10 net carbs per serving, and this cocktail clocks in right at around 5 net carbs per drink. We hope you find this low carb gin cocktail to be the perfect addition to your spooky Halloween festivities at home!
Here’s What We Used For This Purple People Eater Drink:
- Empress 1908 gin (for it’s amazing purple hue!)
- Homemade sugar free keto grenadine
- Fresh squeezed lemon juice
- Diet ginger beer (Goslings)
- Ice
- Lychee and blueberry “eyeball”
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What Is Empress 1908 Gin?
We used Empress 1908 Gin for the gin base in this cocktail. Empress is a small batch gin made with butterfly pea blossoms that create that lovely indigo hue. It’s fun to experiment with, because it changes colors to a slightly pink-ish color when you add tonic or citrus. You can see that the color changed when we added citrus, as well as the keto grenadine. You might be familiar with Empress gin, since we created this Summer Herb Gin and Tonic with it this summer. We think it would be another great Halloween cocktail as well.
Empress has a lovely earthy and botanical flavor. It’s made with the butterfly pea blossoms, fairmont empress tea, juniper, grapefruit peel, coriander seed, cinnamon bark rose petal and ginger root! The color is another huge plus for this cocktail. You can order it online or buy it in stores. You could also probably infuse some regular gin with butterfly pea blossoms to create the lovely indigo color. We’re not entirely sure about the method though, it’s just a thought!
How Do I Use Dry Ice For a Smoking Effect?
Ahh… dry ice!! We have had our fair share of stories trying to obtain dry ice in the Chicagoland area. It’s very difficult to find at your average grocery store in the city limits. Thanks to some friends of ours, we found a place called Polar Ice Company that sells dry ice in 10 pound increments. It’s $10/lb but $35 for 50 pounds. It will only last for about 24-32 hours after you purchase it, and the more dry ice you buy at once, the better. We like to keep it in a styrofoam cooler so that we can maximize the life on it. To use it, grab an ice pick or hammer and carefully (while wearing gloves, seriously!!! it will burn you, it’s so cold!!) break off small chunks of it. Place it in a small container that’s won’t crack or burst when exposed to heat or cold.
Pour in boiling hot water into your container with the dry ice to maximize the smoking effect. The hotter the water, the more it will smoke. Once the smoking starts to slow down, pour out the excess water. Cold water in the container will lessen the smoking reaction. If you want to put some dry ice in this purple people eater drink, simply place a small chunk in there and watch it bubble for a truly fun effect! Just make sure to wait until all of the dry ice is evaporated before consuming. Seriously, this stuff is dangerously cold and it will burn you, your insides included! Lastly, do not store dry ice in the freezer, and do not handle it without gloves. This stuff is no joke, and it’s so cold that it will give you frostbite instantly, and can break your freezer.
Do I Need to Make Sugar Free Grenadine For this Purple People Eater Drink?
Yes and no. Is that a good answer? Haha, we know it’s not really. The thing is, you can do whatever you want. If you want to skip making the keto grenadine entirely, feel free to just use some fresh pomegranate juice. Since the grenadine is combined with allulose sweetener, it does add sweetness, without the calories. This sugar free keto grenadine can be made up to 10 days in advance if stored in an airtight container in the fridge. It’s truly super easy to make, so give it a try! We use it in a ton of our cocktail recipes, or just to make a keto friendly Shirley Temple with sugar free lemon lime pop. If you opt for using regular store bought grenadine, be warned, 1 ounce of regular grenadine has 22g of carbs, all of that coming from sugar. If you ask us, we’d much rather make our own!
How Do I Make The “Eyeball” Garnish in This Purple People Eater Drink?
These “eyeball” garnishes are super simple to make, and they look pretty spooky! To make one, take one lychee fruit (either canned or fresh) and put a blueberry in the middle to resemble a pupil. That’s it! We used a cocktail pick to hold it together, but sometimes they fit in just right and you don’t even need to do that. Try to find fresh lychees if you can, or look for something with no added sugar. Many canned lychees come in a heavily sweetened syrup. Each lychee eyeball garnish (with no added sugar) adds about 2.5 net carbs per drink, just a fair warning!
Is There a Good Substitute for Diet Ginger Beer in This Low Carb Gin Cocktail?
Diet ginger beer is a non-alcoholic mixer with a very strong, ginger taste. Traditionally, ginger beer is fermented with sugar, so the diet version is sadly not actually fermented. It’s just flavored like it’s fermented! Diet ginger beer is such an amazing mixer, you will find it in a ton of our drinks. Our favorite brand is diet Goslings ginger beer. You can find it at Target or many stores around the US. You can also buy it on Amazon. Use your favorite brand. If you can’t find diet ginger beer, our second choice would be this sugar free ginger lime Sparkling Ice. It’s delicious! Diet ginger ale would also taste great in this cocktail, but you might need to add a bit more ginger ale to cover the sweetness aspect.
If You Like This Purple People Eater Drink, Try These Other Fun Low Carb Spooky Cocktails!
- Pomegranate and Ginger Bennett (with a perfect spooky serving suggestion for Halloween!)
- Fall Harvest Whiskey Sipper (Apple Cider Bourbon Cocktail)
- Gin Blueberry Basil Smash (Midnight in the Witch’s Garden Cocktail)
- Fall Harvest Whiskey Sangria
Tools We Used For This Recipe:
- Measuring Cups
- Measuring Spoons
- Jigger
- Cocktail shaker
- Citrus reamer
- Bar spoon
- Sharp Chef’s Knife & Chopping Block
Want to get supplies for this recipe or shop our keto kitchen or pantry? We’ve linked our favorites above and right here in our Amazon Store! A Full Living is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associate program, an affiliate advertising program designed to promote a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking products to amazon.com. We only share products we use and love. It doesn’t cost you anything extra to shop using our links, but we earn a small commission that helps us keep this site going!
How to Make This Purple People Eater Drink (Low Carb Gin Cocktail):
Prepare your sugar free keto grenadine first if you are making it the day of. You can prepare it up 10 days in advance and store it in an airtight container in the fridge. Squeeze some fresh lemon juice.
In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add your lemon juice, keto grenadine, and Empress gin. Shake for 30 seconds or until shaker is very cold. Strain into a glass of choice.
Top with ginger beer, a lychee eyeball, and some dry ice if you want!
That’s it! Just serve and enjoy!
If you get a chance to try this recipe, let us know what you think, would ya?! Leave us a comment, or catch up with us on Facebook or Instagram, or pin to your favorite Pinterest board for later. We love sharing your versions of our creations over on Instagram @afullliving!
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Until Next Time,
Briana & Chamere
This spooky and fun Purple People Eater Drink is the best Low Carb Gin Cocktail to make this Halloween! Combine the beautiful Empress 1908 Gin with fresh lemon juice, our homemade sugar free keto grenadine, diet ginger beer, and top it off with a lychee and blueberry "eyeball"! At only 5 net carbs per cocktail, these purple people eater cocktails taste great, without giving you a horrific hangover, or blood sugar spike.
- 2 oz Empress 1908 Gin
- 1/2 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1 oz homemade keto grenadine
- Ice for cocktail shaker
- 1 whole lychee eyeball with blueberry (optional, and it adds carbs!)
- diet ginger beer
In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add your Empress gin, lemon juice and your homemade keto grenadine. Shake until shaker is very cold, about 30 seconds.
Strain into cocktail glass of choice, top with diet ginger beer.
Garnish with a lychee stuffed with a blueberry to look like an eyeball.
Macros: These macros are estimated and provided as a courtesy using MyFitnessPal. We cannot guarantee the accuracy. to make this cocktail, as well as diet ginger beer.
We used our own homemade sugar free keto grenadine. You can substitute with regular versions of these ingredients, but it will drastically increase the carb and calorie count of this drink.
For 1 cocktail without the lychee “eyeball”: 195 calories per cocktail, 5 total (and net) carbs, 4 grams of sugar.
For 1 lychee and blueberry eyeball: made with 1 lychee fruit and 1 blueberry, approximately 10 calories, 2 total carbs, 14 calories.
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