Black and black

Serves 4

Mark Hix's Halloween black and black (Jason Lowe)

You need a black drink to go with your black supper. The British drinks and liqueur market is on the rise at the moment and recently I was pleasantly surprised to be given a bottle of Sedlescombe organic blackberry liqueur from East Sussex (englishorganicwine.co.uk) by a couple of my guests at the kitchen table demo in Charmouth last month. Another great product is Jo Hilditch's British Cassis (britishcassis.co.uk).

So here are two ways to make a Halloween black and black. The first is to mix 1 part of either of the above with 5-6 parts Guinness or stout, or even Hix oyster ale. If you want to create a drink with a bit more of a Halloween kick you could mix equal quantities of Julian Temperley's Kingston black apple aperitif with the British cassis or blackberry liqueur (ciderbrandy.co.uk).