By Deni Ricci. Posted October 05, 2015 at 05:03PM on “UO Close Up,” the official Universal Orlando blog:
At Halloween Horror Nights 25, there isn’t a corner you turn where you aren’t met with a terrifying scare. I don’t know about you, but it makes me work up an appetite as well as a need to calm my nerves with a refreshing drink.
With this being the 25th year of Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Orlando’s Food and Beverage team stepped up their game by introducing two new specialty drinks and a variety of new food options for guests to enjoy.
Let’s jump straight to my favorites, which are the new specialty beverages: Jack’d Up Carnage and Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights Pumpkin Ale. After trying one of each (of course), I chatted with Bill Young, Assistant Director of Revenue Operations, to find out all about them.
What inspired this year’s signature drink, Jack’d Up Carnage?
We wanted to do something completely different from what we’ve done in the past, so we created Jack’d Up Carnage. It consists of delicious flavors of cinnamon, whiskey, some moonshine, sweet and sour mix, and of course, we had to change it up and make it blue.
I’m going to take a wild guess that Jack the Clown helped inspire this drink?
We won’t go into detail about how he helped with the inspiration process or how much of it he drank, but he was definitely the inspiration behind this drink!And what about the Halloween Horror Nights Pumpkin Ale?
The 25th Halloween Horror Nights called for some new specialty drinks, and we thought pumpkin ale would be the perfect fit for this year’s event. It’s a gentle mix of pumpkin and spice that offers a bit of a darker color and flavor.
And let’s not stop at the drinks! You’ll need some delicious food to chow down on after surviving a couple of haunted houses. Chef Tom Danboise showed me some of the new food you can grab this year. And yes, I may have been sampling each one as he talked me through them…
What are some of the new food options you’re offering this year?
We put our heads together, took some great ideas and adapted it to this year’s event to create new and exciting dishes. We have the pizza dog, which is a Nathan’s hot dog-stuffed pizza slice, Italian sausage hoagie with peppers and onions, foot-long corn dog, barbecue pulled pork hoagie served with coleslaw, chicken kabob and carne asada steak with fresh lemon salsa.
Well, my mouth is watering now. Which is your favorite dish?
It’s a tough choice, but I would have to go with the chicken kabob with the apple barbecue sauce, served on a hot pita with coleslaw and fresh natural chips.And what’s one word you would use to describe the new food options?
Tasty. All of these dishes are packed with flavor, and we hope our guests enjoy them as much as we do.Tasty is definitely the word I would use for all of the new food and beverage you can find at Halloween Horror Nights 25.
What are you looking forward to trying? Or if you’ve already been to Halloween Horror Nights, what would you recommend?
My recommendation: Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights Pumpkin Ale paired with the barbecue pulled pork hoagie. Yum!
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