Episode 83: Cocktails From the Black Lagoon, With Erin Hayes and Kelsey Ramage

Halloween is one of the most popular holidays around, and with this year’s Black Lagoon pop-up, bars everywhere are getting in on the celebrations. For this episode, we talk with Black Lagoon co-founders Kelsey Ramage and Erin Hayes (pictured above left to right) about the origins of Black Lagoon, what visitors can expect from this year’s experience, and what it takes to put together a full menu of Halloween-themed cocktails.

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Paul Clarke

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Radio Imbibe by Imbibe magazine. I’m Paul Clarke, Imbibe’s editor in chief. 

And right now, this would be the spot where—if we were into hokey sound effects on this podcast—I’d insert some kind of movie scream or ghoulish cackle or some other sound effect to indicate that it’s now October and Halloween is coming up soon. But we don’t use silly sound effects here, and you’re welcome for that. But, hey, Halloween is coming and over the years, it’s become one of the most widely celebrated holidays around. Which makes it all the more surprising when you realize that it’s only been in the past couple of years that Halloween has had its own dedicated cocktail bar pop-up events. 

Kelsey Ramage and Erin Hayes, both veteran bartenders and drinks industry professionals, organized the first Black Lagoon pop-up in Toronto in 2021. And this year, this month, you can find Black Lagoons in cities ranging from Toronto and New York to Seattle, Houston, Guadalajara, Paris, and beyond. 

So what is Black Lagoon? Well, I stopped by a preview of the event at Rob Roy here in Seattle recently to check it out. And while I can tell you a little bit about it, it makes more sense to bring Kelsey and Erin into the conversation to share what drove them to create the Black Lagoon concept, what you can expect when you check it out yourself this month, and what went into putting together a whole menu of Halloween appropriate cocktails. 

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Paul Clarke

Erin, Kelsey, welcome to Radio Imbibe.

Erin Hayes

Thank you, Paul. 

Kelsey Ramage

Hi, Paul. 

Erin Hayes

Nice to be here. 

Paul Clarke

At the time listeners hear this, it will be early October. And I know some people celebrate Halloween year round, but for the purposes of this conversation, we’re going to focus on this month, this season, and the big build up to October 31st. For the third year now, the two of you have organized Black Lagoon, a season appropriate bar pop-up—which first, let me say, awesome. And after kicking it off in Toronto in 2021, it’s now in 17 cities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and France. For people who haven’t yet encountered this, what’s the general idea behind Black Lagoon? Kelsey, let’s start with you. 

Kelsey Ramage

I mean, we started Black Lagoon because we both have kind of a love for the macabre. And we really wanted to create a space that, you know, with the closure of a lot of the goth bars out there and kind of the spaces that we wanted to hang out, we just really wanted something that was like immersive of super creepy foliage dripping everywhere, animatronics in some of the venues, life-size coffins, just like a full kind of encompassing Halloween experience with delicious cocktails. 

Erin Hayes

Yeah. You know, Kelsey and I have long bonded over our love of the same type of music. Like, we listen to metal, goth, all that fun stuff. We both grew up in that alternative style, and just being able to create something to bring us back to that was very, very cool. 

Paul Clarke

And we’ve seen Christmas-themed bar pop-ups really take over the world every December now. What kind of an opportunity and reasoning did you see for something focused on Halloween? 

Erin Hayes

The pop-ups have really turned Christmas into a drinking month. People go out and seek out these different experiences to go and hang out at during the Christmas holiday. And people definitely take the opportunity in October to do Halloween things all month long. There’s haunted houses, there’s haunted hayrides, there’s horror nights if you’re near a theme park. And, you know, people typically have house parties or costume parties and, you know, dress and get dressed up and do bar crawls.

So we thought, let’s put kind of all of those ideas together, create, like, a really spooky experience that’s like actually dark and scary. Not necessarily kid-friendly. I will say all of our venues are 21 up in the U.S. and, legal age everywhere else. But we wanted to really capitalize on the idea that people enjoy dressing up and escaping, having drinks to celebrate weird and spooky season.

Paul Clarke

You know, Halloween is already super popular, not just in the U.S., but it’s a global thing. It kind of seems only natural to put a cocktail spin on it and have these kinds of adult-oriented spaces where people can come and have fun and just kind of do so in this kind of environment. When you first kicked this off in Toronto a couple of years ago, what kind of response did you get and what suggested that this is something that you really need to take to a bigger audience.

Kelsey Ramage

When we kicked this all off, I think it was kind of like the first week was a little bit of a slow start where people were kind of, you know, it was right after the pandemic. People were a little bit trepidatious at first to come down. And then, you know, by week two, we did it for three weeks. By week two, the word had got out. I think we went viral. Some TikToker came in and did a video and it just kind of exploded.

And what we saw was that, you know, there were fashion students that were coming down and like really going nuts with their costumes. Then we had like the cocktail enthusiasts coming down and like, you know, having a couple of drinks early in the night. And then we got, you know, the weirdos and the goth kids. It was just this, like, really wonderful coming together of people of all kinds of different backgrounds. And then it got really busy. It was like a line out the door. And I think we took a picture of it at one point because it was just like, insane. 

Erin Hayes

Around the block. Yeah, I had the unfun job, the very unfun job of telling people you might not want to line up anymore. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to get you in for tonight, which happened literally every night the last 10 days that we were open in Toronto. 

Paul Clarke

And then with that experience, you’re like, well, hey, next year we really need we need to take this on the road.

Erin Hayes

Yeah. 

Kelsey Ramage

Mm hmm. 

Erin Hayes

And you know, it was kind of always my dream to create something like this that was multi city. And Kelsey and I, we talked about this since we threw a little off-the-radar party during Tales of Cocktail at the Dungeon in 2019. And we were like, Oh man, we both are really into this and this would be cool to take on the road. But yeah, first, the response was crazy. We were in nine cities across the U.S. and Canada and literally doubling that this year. We have 18 cities and it’s wild. 

Paul Clarke

And so let’s talk about some of the details. Let’s start with the actual space. Right when folks first walk in the door, how are we going full Halloween with the experience?

Kelsey Ramage

I think the first part of the door is usually like, opens up into the bar area. And what we really wanted to create with that was a lagoon type of setting. So we’ve got like foliage, you know, dripping off of the lights around the bar, a lot of like purple and green sort of mood lighting. And then as you move past the bar and into the space, we’ve got a lot more, like, creepier things happening. So like, you know, body parts hanging from the ceiling and like a cobweb wall you know, a stand-up coffin.

Erin Hayes

Yeah, we, we really encourage and I think that we’ve really honed in on how to make the spaces very immersive and focusing each little crevice of the space on a different experience. So like Kelsey said, we’ll have a cobweb wall where there’s cocooned bodies with giant spiders and it’s all lit up. And you know, we have a little graveyard area. Sometimes there’s zombies creeping around, lots of skeletons. And honestly, all of our venues got so excited at the opportunity to really dress this space up for Halloween that I’m so excited to see what everybody does.

Paul Clarke

And music as well. There’s an auditory side to it, too. 

Erin Hayes

Big time. I’m crazy about our playlists. We’ve got, I think, eight or nine now. There is a little bit of something for every time of the day or evening. We have several venues that are open during the day, so not necessarily want to be blasting heavy metal at lunch. Right. But we have our goth rock playlist and we have our grunge playlists that are a little bit more easy, easy listening compared to the late-night stuff. 

And then, yeah, it gets a little bit heavier. We’ve got some really fun playlists that are more intended for the weekend nights that are as dancey as you can get with, you know, metal and punk and goth rock. And we did have lots of dancing groups in the first year and last year, which is so fun to see everybody dancing around the giant coffin to Rammstein. 

Paul Clarke

And of course, this is taking place at cocktail bars. And you both have an abundance of experience in the spirits and cocktails space. How did you set your sights on putting together a menu that was both Halloween appropriate and super delicious as well? 

Kelsey Ramage

I think both of us have a lot of fun with the menu. I believe, in the first year because of the pandemic, we did it all kind of remotely and just kind of did a zoom call and, like, put together a bunch of drinks. But the last this year, we were able to, like, meet up in person and last year and just like, get together for three days, have a couple of ideas.

All of our the drinks for Black Lagoon, we based off of color, which is kind of interesting. It’s sort of a different way that, you know, Erin and I both approach drinks a little bit differently. So it’s kind of cool to, you know, see each other’s ideas and come together and just like bang out some drinks for a couple of days. I think we work really well together in that regard. 

Erin Hayes

Yeah, Kelsey and I have such symbiotic cocktail idea of vision. And even though, you know, we often go different directions and really enjoy different flavors, the things that we each add to each other’s drinks, I think really makes for a cohesive menu. 

Paul Clarke

And, you know, I stopped by a preview of Black Lagoon recently, saw both of you at Rob Roy here in Seattle, and I had a Death Rattle with Ford’s gin and Spanish brandy and sherry and pineapple and lime juice and spiced oat orgeat. As you were putting this menu together, how did you make sure you had one eye on the holiday? And the theme at all times? 

Erin Hayes

Yeah. So Kelsey and I obviously both have some experience in the tropical drink realm, so that’s something that’s very close to our black little hearts. And also the lagoon, right, kind of lends itself to a little bit of a tropical vibe. So you’ll always see little hints of that.

Definitely thinking about fall flavors. So you’ll see lots of spices, lots of we’ve got apple, those there’s a couple of brown and stirred drinks that you really associate with that colder weather, but then wanted to make sure that there is something for everybody. So really focusing on creating a cocktail menu that’s well-rounded. And like Kelsey said, we base it off of color, so we essentially make a color wheel of all of the colors associated with Halloween and try to create flavor profiles based off of that, which is a super fun and mind-opening way of looking at cocktails that neither of us have ever done before. 

Paul Clarke

Were there any favorites as you go through and look at the menu for this year? Were there ones you were like, “Yeah, I nailed that one”?

Kelsey Ramage

Yeah.

Erin Hayes

I honestly, I’m so proud of this one, and I think that every single drink has a little piece of Kelsey and I. There wasn’t one that was just one of us saying like, “Oh, yeah, I got this.” Each of us were like, “You know what? That could use a little bit of this.” And so, you know, I think for me, some of the favorites that both of us really had a hand in the Book of Blood is amazing. It’s a margarita riff with Montelobos mezcal, miso falernum, beet juice, lime, and Giffard Piment. It’s like an earthy, slightly spicy margarita variation. I love the Nightcrawler, which is a spiced apple Manhattan variation with Lot 40 Rye. Yeah, there’s something for every mood. So I’ve drank my way across the menu in all of our previews a couple times.

Paul Clarke

And as I mentioned, it’s early October when listeners hear this, so they’ve got a fun month ahead of them to check this out. Any final thoughts you’d like to share on Black Lagoon and the concept and what you’re doing? As we head to the end here? 

Kelsey Ramage

Yeah. One thing I’d really like to mention is that a lot of our success I think of the first year and, you know, the year, even the ones that we were operating in Toronto and L.A., we’ve put together a lot of programming. So we’ve got an emo night that happens every Wednesday, and then a lot of the venues have jumped on this and hired, like, drag performers and burlesque shows. So I think for everyone, they can just keep an eye on the Instagram @BlackLagoonpopup because we’ll be reposting as many as possible of each of our venues’ performances. And they’re just such a nice way to support the performance community and also just come down and have a really good time. 

Paul Clarke

Well, Erin, Kelsey, thanks so much for coming on the podcast and sharing this with us. And happy Halloween. 

Kelsey Ramage

Happy Halloween. Thanks. 

Erin Hayes

Thank you. Happy Halloween. 

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Paul Clarke

Head to BlackLagoonpopup.com to find a participating bar near you and to find out more and check out Black Lagoon on Instagram @BlackLagoonpopup. 

And that’s it for this episode. Be sure to subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with future episodes. You can find plenty of articles, recipes and our full back catalog of podcast episodes online at our website, imbibemagazine.com. Check us out on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Threads for all of your social media needs. And if you’re not already a subscriber to the print or digital issues of Imbibe, then here’s how we can change that. Just follow the link of this episode’s notes and we’ll be happy to help you out. 

I’m Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Happy Halloween and I’ll catch you next time.