Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Devil’s Own Cocktail inspired by Devil’s Night, which is the night before Halloween, and what many consider a good time to warm up for the next-day’s events.
Devil’s Night first arose from a British tradition known as “Mischief Night” which developed in the late 1700s, and was celebrated on May Day Eve, April 30. The celebration involved people engaging in jokes, pranks, and occasionally, vandalism, but was mostly focused on positivity, fun, and the blossoming that comes with the return of spring, common in the English countryside
British historians and folklorists say that positive spirit held little resonance for Brits who were living and growing up in the grimy cities of the 1800s. So by the late 1800s, the celebration had shifted to the fall - and to a much darker focus. Still, the holiday began in Britain - and appropriately, the Devil’s Own cocktail comes from Great Britain.
By the 1930s and 40s, the mischief making holiday made its way to the United States, most prominently in the Detroit area. Some historians attribute the broader adoption of such a dark holiday to the tone in the U.S. in the wake of the Great Depression. Mischief Night ensued, but back then the hijinks were minor: Toilet papering trees & homes, egging houses, soaping windows, & flaming bags of dog poo left on porches. Mischief Night back then was largely just an annoyance to local police.
Other cities in the Rust Belt began to take part in the activities in the following years, but Detroit was always the epicenter. Unfortunately, by the early 1970s things took an even darker turn. Rising unemployment in Detroit led to a growing number of foreclosures and abandoned buildings – perfect targets for vandalism and arson. Pranksters started setting fires, which sometimes spread widely, through abandoned homes and buildings. It peaked in 1984 when the Detroit Fire Department put out more than 800 fires across the city in one night. Police and fire departments were unable to maintain control.
By 1986, Detroit enacted a curfew on Devil’s Night. Youth under 18 could not be out past 10 PM on October 30 unless accompanied by adults. Throughout the 1990s, volunteers, under the moniker ‘Angel’s Night’ began acting as a neighborhood watch throughout Detroit. They enforced curfew and alerted authorities to suspicious activity they observed, and in doing so, helped bring about an end to the violence.
In 2017. Detroit officially ended the program. However, some neighborhood groups and organizations continue to organize their own patrols and activities on October 30, though not as part of an official city-wide campaign.
For all the darkness associated with Devil’s Night, other areas of the U.S. still kept a more positive air about the holiday. From Connecticut, and parts of New York & New Jersey, through the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, through Delaware, and parts of Maryland, the holiday retained it’s “Mischief Night” label, and it’s more benign celebrations. In Des Moines, Iowa and its surrounding suburbs, the night has become known as “Beggar’s Night”, where it’s become more common for children to trick-or-treat on Beggar’s Night than Halloween.
For us tonight though, we’ll keep the “Devil’s night” label, since it goes much better with tonight’s Drink Of The Day, the Devil’s Own Cocktail.
Ingredients
Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink:
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