Erzsébet (Elizabeth) Báthory's Kiss: A Serial Killer Cocktail?

Wine-based cocktails seem to be very popular right now.  You could throw a rock in any hipster-type bar across the US and hit at least one New York Sour. We thought we’d toss our hat in the ring with our wine-based version of the Vampire’s Kiss. The Vampire’s kiss varies a bit across recipes, but it is a vibrant red cocktail made of cranberry juice, raspberry liqueur, and vodka.  We call our version Bathory’s Kiss. So, who is Báthory and what is this drink?
​
Erzsébet (Elizabeth) Báthory(1560 C.E. – 1614 C.E.) was a Hungarian aristocrat and, more importantly, a fascinating person. She is very much a study in contrasts. She was extremely bright and fluent in many languages whilst most of the European world was illiterate. She was also a caring mother and a devout protestant.

However, she may also have been the most prolific serial killer of all time with a murder toll somewhere between 50 and 650 young female victims. Erzsébet ​is probably most well-known for rumors of her supposedly bathing in the blood of her virgin victims to maintain her youth. However, as these reports never came up in trial testimony of the time and only in books from the 1700s, we can safely rule out the veracity of this vampiric tidbit.

A bottle of Slovakian wine from the vineyards of Čachtice castle. Though only one of her many properties, this is where she eventually died. The cellars used to age this wine used to be under her manor house.

If the stories are real, she dispatched these young women in gruesome, torturous ways. For example, she was said to have bitten them, drawing blood, and also to have made them strip in the winter while she poured cold water over them, allowing them to slowly succumb to the elements. Some were even more sadistically creative – she was reputed to have lit oil-soaked pieces of paper on fire that were cunningly placed between the poor girls’ toes.
 
However, if the stories are not real, she was the victim of an elaborate witch hunt from up on high (i.e., both the King and Palatine of Hungary were "involved"). In this version, she was arrested because she was extremely wealthy and had many castles and tracts of arable land. The land also had very good vineyards famous in her own time and still active today. Her wines graced the tables of kings. Even worse for Erzsébet, this particular King was in financial debt to her. Thus, getting her out of the way could be a convenient way of, shall we say, raising his Renaissance-era credit score. It wouldn’t hurt to have more good wine to sell, too.

The only roughly contemporary image of Erzsébet Báthory (wikicommons)

So, what is the truth? Did a fantastically rich and famous countess murder and brutalize hundreds of girls OR was fake news alive and well in 1610? If you want to get a modern idea of how famous she was, just imagine a combination of Oprah Winfrey and Kate Middleton.

Isn’t it extremely strange that we don’t really know for sure? Shouldn’t the historians of the time have tackled this question and left irrefutable proof of her crimes for posterity, or is this all part of a cover-up?

Well, lacking firm answers, we can at least enjoy a nice drink as we ponder this historical mystery. If you can find some wine produced at one of Erzsébet's former properties (e.g., Čachtice castle in modern-day Slovakia), well, then all the better.

A Bathory's Kiss to enjoy on a nice spring day while pondering Renaissance-era conspiracies or conspiracy theories.

To make our version of a Vampire’s kiss (two cocktails):
-6 oz of a good red wine. We prefer a bold and fruity one (preferably from Čachtice, Slovakia)
-2 oz cherry vodka*
-2 oz Grand Marnier or triple sec

Put all ingredients in a shaker and stir with a bartender’s spoon for 60 rotations with plenty of ice.
Strain into a couple of fancy glasses and garnish with a cherry
 
Flavor Notes:
This is a quick and flavorful (relatively) low horsepower cocktail that still manages to feel a bit sexy.