If you want a fun Halloween cocktail that’s as cute and creepy as it is delicious, try my Spooky Spider Web Margarita! This is a simple three ingredient cocktail that’s dressed up for spooky season with a sticky spider web garnish.
Read on to learn how to make marshmallow spider webs for all your Halloween cocktails and mocktails!
Spider Web Margarita ingredients
This cocktail is made with tequila, lime juice, and cream of coconut. It’s sweet, sour, and tropical, and the perfect hue of ghostly white. The garnish is made with melted marshmallows. It took me a few tries to figure out how to work with the sticky marshmallows, but I learned a few key tips along the way that I think will help you avoid my mistakes.
Tequila
Use your favorite tequila or mezcal. This simple recipe is perfect for batching for a Halloween party – and there’s no need to use your most expensive bottle. I used Tres Agaves blanco, which is additive-free, citrus-forward and goes great with lime and coconut.
Fresh lime juice
Yes, it has to be fresh! Fresh lime juice is the secret to a perfect Margarita. You’ll need about half a large lime or one small lime to yield one ounce of juice.
Cream of coconut
Cream of coconut is essentially sweetened coconut cream. It’s a very sweet, rich, creamy liquid that typically comes in a can from brands like Coco Lopez or Goya. I love to use Coco Reàl because it comes in a very convenient squeeze bottle. Cream of coconut is used in many delicious creamy, tropical cocktails like the Piña Colada or Piña Verde.
Marshmallows
The key to making this coconut margarita spooky is marshmallows! You can use large or small ones. I used about one large marshmallow per drink’s garnish. Let’s dive into how to make the marshmallow spider webs.
How to make the spider web garnish
To make the garnish, you’ll need marshmallows, a microwave safe bowl or plate, and nitrile gloves (if you don’t want to get the sticky marshmallow all over yourself!)
Place 1-2 marshmallows on the plate and microwave for 20-30 seconds. The marshmallow needs to be hot enough to melt, but not so hot that it turns hard or gets burned.
What’s a bit tricky here is that marshmallow cools and hardens rapidly, so you do need to work quickly. Remove the marshmallow from the microwave and begin to pull it apart with your fingers.
When it becomes stringy, place one end of the string on the rim of your glass and pull it across to the other side. Let the string stick to the glass and each other and gently continue pulling back and forth until you’ve created a web-like shape.
Tips for a successful marshmallow spider web garnish
Now here are some key things I learned from my dozen+ attempts to make a perfect web:
Temperature is key
The marshmallow needs to be fairly hot to become stringy and wispy – so gloves are helpful to avoid burning your fingers. As the marshmallow cools, the strings become thicker and more brittle and pull away from the rest of the web. So as soon as you notice the texture of the marshmallow changing, quit messing with it!
Aim for super light and wispy
The lighter and wispier you make your strands, the better it will hold up. As you can see in my pictures, I had quite a few larger, heavier strands that caused the web to sink, eventually dipping into my margarita! While it’s fine for the garnish to end up in the drink, it’s not quite the look I was hoping for.
Choose glassware wisely
Another good way to avoid the web sinking too much is to use glassware that’s a little larger/deeper than you need. This will keep some distance between your margarita and the web.
Do a dry run to get the hang of it
Practice ahead of time, if you can. The internet made me think this whole marshmallow spider web thing would come out perfect every time, so I didn’t practice prior to making this recipe.
I ended up re-garnishing an empty glass about a dozen times because I didn’t like how sloppy the edges kept coming out. Melty candy can be a difficult thing to control, so eventually I leaned into the slightly messy web look.
I recommend familiarizing yourself with the process before making these for a Halloween party so you can avoid the frustrations I went through. It is, in fact, a very easy process, but if you want it to look perfect and not immediately sink into your drink, it’s worth practicing how melty/stringy your marshmallows need to be!
Garnish only half the glass
If you only string your web along half of your margarita glass, you can do the garnishing first and then just carefully pour the liquid into the non-webbed half of the glass. This is the ideal way to go if you’re making a batch of these on Halloween.
Don’t make them too far in advance
The marshmallow cob webs will hold their shape for a little while, but I don’t recommend making the garnishes too far in advance of serving. If the webs are very wispy, they’ll hold their shape for longer.
More fun marshmallow spider web recipes to try:
How to make the cocktail
Now that you’ve learned everything there is to know about marshmallow cob webs, let’s make some margaritas!
Combine the tequila, lime juice and cream of coconut in a cocktail shaker. Add a pinch of salt (optionally) to really make the flavors pop. Fill the shaker about three quarters with ice and shake until thoroughly chilled.
Strain the cocktail into your margarita glass and then carefully string your marshmallow cobwebs along the rim of the glass. Add a little plastic spider to the outside rim if you like (I got a bag of 100 for just a few dollars on Amazon).
Optional: add spooky color
This bright white margarita is very easy to color with food dye. You could add orange, black, purple or green food coloring to give it a more Halloween-y vibe. Simply add a few drops to your cocktail shaker.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty and now that I know how to make this spider web garnish, I really want to try it on a dark colored drink so it stands out more! Stay tuned for the next spooky spider web cocktail…
You may also enjoy these other cocktails:
Spooky Spider Web Margarita (Easy Halloween Cocktail)
This fun, three ingredient, coconut Margarita is a cute cocktail for Halloween with a marshmallow cob web garnish.
For the Margarita:
- 2 oz tequila
- 1 oz lime juice
- ¾ oz cream of coconut
For the Spider Web Garnish:
For the Margarita:
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Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and fill it three quarters with ice.
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Shake until chilled, then strain into a margarita or cocktail glass.
For the Spider Web Garnish:
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Place 1-2 marshmallows on a plate or in a bowl and microwave for 20-30 seconds.
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Use a nitrile glove to pull the melted marshmallow apart, creating web-like strands. Stick one end of a wispy strand on the rim of your glass and pull across to the other side of the glass.
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Continue pulling strands across the top of the glass to create a web-like design.
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If the marshmallow begins feeling stiff or starts pulling too much on the other strands you’ve created, stop. You can always heat up another marshmallow if you want to add more webbing. Rinse and dry the plate or bowl after melting each batch of marshmallows to avoid hard, burnt on bits that can ruin the look of your web.
