This Copycat Applebee's Tipsy Zombie That Packs A Fruity Punch

Applebee's released several spooky cocktails back in October 2024, but these popular drinks haven't gone out of style, Halloween or not. With names such as Dracula's Juice and the Boo Lagoon, they boast fun names, bright colors, and sweet, fruity, deceptively strong formulas.

Recipe developer Michelle Bottalico has created a copycat recipe for Applebee's Tipsy Zombie cocktail featuring Bacardi Superior white rum, blue curaçao, melon liqueur, several fruit juices, and lime. With a vibrant blue/turquoise color, this is an eye-catching drink. The color is mostly blue until it gradates father down into green from the melon liqueur and a touch of red from a splash of cherry juice that filters down, for a pretty ombré effect. Make sure to follow the directions and don't stir after topping off the glass, or the colors blend into a muddy green.

This copycat drink is as delicious as it is fun to look at. It is definitely sweet, but it has a balanced taste, without either the alcohol or the juice taking over. That said, though it's a strong drink, it's cold and refreshing too. The juice gives it a surprisingly summery flavor, even though it was created for Halloween. The original incarnation came with a gummy brain floating in the drink, so feel free to garnish it with a gummy brain or even an eyeball or zombie finger to dress it up. Bottalico has made the gummy an optional ingredient so you can serve the cocktail at any time of year, because despite the name, this is a drink for all seasons.

For this recipe, you will need Bacardi Superior white rum. While this is the way Applebee's makes it, you could use other kinds of white rum if you don't have Bacardi rum. Scroll down for ideas for substituting other ingredients if needed. You will also need blue curaçao and melon liqueur. The tipsy zombie is made with several fruit ingredients — have pineapple juice, passion fruit mixer, and cherry juice on hand. Finally, you will need lime juice and an optional gummy brain.

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.

Place the rum, blue curaçao, pineapple juice, passion fruit mixer, and lime juice in the shaker, close it with the lid, and shake for 10-12 seconds.

Fill a balloon glass with small ice cubes.

Strain the drink into the glass.

Slowly top with the melon liqueur and add a splash of cherry juice. Do not stir.

Add the gummy brain to the drink if using and serve immediately.

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How to tell if drinks should be shaken or stirred can be confusing. Although both methods mix the drink ingredients together, there are reasons why one method or another is preferred for certain drinks. The point of shaking is to mix, yes, but also to chill the ingredients very quickly. The rougher shaking also serves to easily blend different ingredients that may be hard to stir together and to introduce air bubbles into the liquid, which makes drinks feel lighter and just a touch fizzy or frothy. Finally, the ice that melts during the shaking process dilutes the drink. By dilute, we don't mean the cocktail gets watered down in a negative way. The dilution serves to balance the strong straight ingredients and bring it to the perfect sipping consistency. Cocktails that contain citrus and other fruit juices should be shaken, and the tipsy zombie contains both of those things.

How long to shake? Experiments show that 10-12 seconds is the ideal shaking time to properly chill the drink. Shaking for longer than 12 seconds won't make much of a difference in how cold the liquid gets, so it's wasted effort and could actually backfire and dilute the drink too much. If you're shaking a drink that's served over ice, like the tipsy zombie, you can choose to shake it a little less (up to 7 seconds) to compensate for the ice chilling the mixture even more.

There are various ways you can customize a tipsy zombie. This cocktail is made with Bacardi Superior white rum, but you can use another kind of white rum if needed. The next ingredient is blue curaçao. If you can't get your hands on this or would rather not buy a bottle if you're not sure you'll use it in other recipes, you can substitute triple sec or another orange liqueur instead. Despite the blue color, which is added later, blue curaçao actually has a base of oranges, so triple sec has similar flavor.

This cocktail contains pineapple juice, passion fruit mixer, and a splash of cherry juice, which help make the drink sweet, fruity, and fresh tasting. You can use orange juice to replace the pineapple juice if needed or sub mango juice to keep the flavor tropical. Instead of passion fruit mixer you could use passion fruit juice. You can by this pre-packaged or you could puree fresh passion fruit if it's available in your area. If not, some supermarkets sell frozen passion fruit pieces, which you can defrost and puree. If cherry juice is hard to find, sub a blend (such as apple-cherry juice) or even cherry liqueur, which will still provide the splash of red color. Besides the gummy brain, gummy eyeballs, zombie fingers, or all three would be equally fun. Finally, if you don't have small ice cubes, go ahead and use regular ones. It will still taste great.

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