Stranger Things Themed Drinks: Upside Down Reds, Eggo Shots and Kids' Glasses

I’ve tended bar at three Stranger Things parties. Two were in basements. One was a bar that strung Christmas lights along the back wall and painted the alphabet under them in house paint. Same request every time. Make the drinks look like the show, dark red and a little gross. And give them something that tastes like a waffle.

Here’s the menu I’d pour again. It’s a fan party. Unofficial, nothing licensed. Every drink is a real recipe in the CocktailBuilder database. The pours are mine.

The Upside Down

The Upside Down is a color job. You want red going on black. Cranberry and raspberry liqueur do it cheap.

Lead with the Bloodbath. Chambord, cranberry juice, cabernet. I build it in a big wine glass over ice: an ounce of Chambord, three of cranberry, two of red wine. Stir once. It comes out the color of a bruise. Want it layered instead? Pour the wine last over a spoon and it floats dark on top for a minute or so. Either way it’s the drink people photograph.

The Blood of Christ is the lighter red. Cranberry, Chambord, triple sec. Shake hard, strain into a coupe. No base spirit, so it’s weaker than it looks. Good for the guest on drink four.

Then the joke. The Upside-Down Martini is gin and French vermouth. Not red. Not spooky. It’s a real bartender’s drink, the martini ratio flipped so vermouth leads. Two ounces of dry vermouth, one of gin, stirred very cold. The bar crowd laughed right away. Everyone else needed it explained. Worth it anyway.

Last, the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. Vanilla vodka, pineapple juice, grenadine. Grenadine goes in last so it sinks. Red bottom, gold top. Sweet as the cake.

Eggos

Eleven eats Eggos. The whole room knows it. So the waffle drinks go first. Every single party.

Took me two parties to figure this out. Butterscotch tastes more like a toaster waffle than maple does. People argue. Then they taste it and stop.

• Waffles and Syrup: butterscotch liqueur and spiced rum. Equal parts, chilled, shot glass.
• Maple Syrup Shot: butterscotch schnapps and Captain Morgan. Same drink, other name. Both go on the menu because guests like picking.
• The Waffler: real maple syrup, Baileys and a maple liqueur. Creamy and very sticky.
• French Toast: butterscotch schnapps, Baileys and Hot Damn cinnamon schnapps. Breakfast, then a burn.

Want something to sip? Pour the Breakfast Rum. Light rum, lemon, maple syrup. Shake two ounces of rum with three-quarters of an ounce of lemon and half an ounce of maple. That’s a maple daiquiri. Best drink on this menu, and I’ll fight about it. People who’ve never watched an episode order it twice.

Garnish with a toaster waffle quarter on a pick. Toast it dark. A pale one goes soggy in two minutes.

The Demogorgon

The monster gets a shot, and it has to look wrong. The Bloody Brain looks wrong. Peach schnapps first. Baileys dripped in slowly. Then a few drops of grenadine. The cream seizes in the schnapps and hangs in pink strings. Guests make a noise. Then they shoot it, and it tastes like peaches and cream. That surprises them more than the look did.

The thing’s face opens like a flower in the show. You can’t do that in a shot glass. I tried once with a fanned strawberry. Waste of a strawberry.

There’s a recipe called Hellfire, too. Great name for the club. Bad drink. Grain alcohol plus 100-proof cinnamon schnapps, nothing else. Not at a party with kids in the next room. Honestly not at any party I’m working.

Hawkins, 1980-something

The show lives in the 80s, so the back bar can too. Peach schnapps, melon liqueur, orange juice. A Fuzzy Navel and a Melon Ball look the part without a costume. Our 80s cocktails roundup has the rest of the schnapps era if you want a full decade wall.

My rule: one 80s drink on the menu. Two at most. They’re all sweet, and three of them is a sugar headache by midnight.

For kids and drivers

Half these parties have kids. Usually the ones who got their parents watching. They want a named drink too, and they’ll check yours.

The float is the hit. Scoops Ahoy is the mall ice cream shop from season three, and every kid there knows that. Ice cream first, then cola, then grenadine, so it doesn’t foam over.

Blood Punch comes out dark purple-red. Mix the Kool-Aid strong and add the grape soda right before guests arrive. Monster Slime Juice turns a murky swamp color when blue drink meets orange juice. Gross. Kids love it.

None of these has alcohol in it. Keep it obvious. I once watched a dad pick up a Bloodbath thinking it was punch, half a glass in before he noticed. Put the kids’ table across the room. Plastic cups for them, glass for adults.

More ideas for that table are in our Halloween mocktails, most of which pass for Upside Down drinks with a new card. And if this crowd also does movie nights, the Shrek themed drinks menu runs on the same idea in green.

Running the night

Batch the Blood of Christ in a pitcher before anyone shows up. Keep the shots in the freezer. Shake the Breakfast Rums to order, because they’re the only drink that suffers from sitting.

Buy the old big-bulb light strand, not the little LEDs. The small ones look wrong on that wall. And put a second bottle of grenadine behind the bar, because the kids’ table will go through the first one by nine.

Last modified on November 8, 2026