Getting candy is easy these days — all you need to do is put on a costume, head to the neighbor’s house and, voila, there you go! Make it more exciting by hiding treats throughout your house and yard for kids to find.
55 things to do this Halloween that are wicked good
Trick-or-treating, carving jack-o’-lanterns, pet parades and other spooky activities for kids and adults.
June 30, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC / Updated Oct. 27, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC
Costumes and trick-or-treating might be the stars of Halloween, but they’re really just the tip of the witch’s hat when it comes to all the fun things you can do in honor of the big day.
Along with all the traditional activities like carving jack-o’-lanterns and watching scary movies, there’s also hosting a Halloween party, attending a pet Halloween parade and oh-so-much more to do to celebrate the season’s most spooktacular event.
To help you make the most of it, we’ve gathered a list of things to do on Halloween that’s so good, it’s positively wicked.
With the clocking ticking down to October 31, there’s no time to waste. Start checking off these inspired ideas and happenings immediately, because before you know it, it’ll be time to turn the page on the calendar and move on to holiday shopping.
In the meantime, from cute crafts to making a Halloween playlist, we’ve got a little something for just about everyone in the family, as well as activities for friends, couples and kids.
Ever thought of decorating a Halloween tree? How about hosting a Halloween trivia night? Or, if you’re thinking of something a bit more on the supernatural side, consider booking a local ghost tour, which, if nothing more, is sure to send at least a few chills down your spine.
Whichever you choose, with so many frighteningly good ideas to choose from, this year Halloween is bound to be nothing short of fang-tabulous.
Attend a Halloween parade
While New York City is home to one of the biggest Halloween parades in the world, plenty of other cities and towns also get into the spirit of the season by hosting a parade. Do a bit of homework or Google search to discover “Halloween activities near me” and you’re sure to find local happenings and events commemorating the holiday.
Many amusement parks get a haunted makeover each year for Halloween. Festive and spooky, plan a trip to one of them this Halloween for a day (or night) of thrilling rides, haunted houses and scary good fun.
Visit a Halloween store
What better way to get into the Halloween spirit than to take a gander at this year’s hottest costumes and decorations? Giant spiders? Animatronic skeletons? Barbie getups? You’ll find them all at any number of Halloween stores and pop-ups open and waiting for ghouls and guys to come through the door.
Why go out when you can stay in and host a Halloween dance party at home? Challenge your friends to come over and do the Monster Mash or try learning the iconic “Thriller” dance. If it’s a family night in, put on a cute Kids’ Halloween songs playlist and bust a move with the little ones after trick-or-treating or anytime during the season.
The research
- Who this is for
- Nonalcoholic wines vs. wine alternatives
- What makes a good nonalcoholic wine?
- Our favorite nonalcoholic sparkling white wines
- Our favorite nonalcoholic white wines
- Our favorite nonalcoholic sparkling and still rosés
- Our favorite nonalcoholic red wine
- The competition
- Is there really no alcohol?
- How we picked and tested
- Sources
This guide is for anyone avoiding alcohol for any reason—whether you practice a religion that prohibits alcohol, are sober, pregnant, the designated driver, or simply looking to dodge a hangover—but would still like to enjoy a glass of something special. It’s also for hosts who’d like to offer an interesting option to their alcohol-avoiding guests. We recommend dealcoholized wines (which aim to replicate the taste, look, and feel of conventional wine, without the buzz) and wine alternatives (which, through appearance, texture, and flavor, create a complex drink worth swirling in a glass and savoring).
An important note: Many companies whose nonalcoholic wines or wine alternatives have 0.5% alcohol content recommend that you check with your doctor if you have a condition that would prevent you from consuming even trace amounts of alcohol. For transparency’s sake, in this guide we list the ingredients in each pick, as well as the alcohol content and the process with which it’s made.
Nonalcoholic wines vs. wine alternatives
You’ll find two types of drinks in this category: nonalcoholic wines and wine alternatives. Nonalcoholic wines start out as regular, alcoholic wines, and then the alcohol is removed. Wine alternatives simply try to replicate the taste and experience of wine by using other ingredients.
Nonalcoholic wines go through one of several processes to reduce the alcohol content to either less than 0.5% alcohol or 0.0% alcohol (more on that below). Nonalcoholic wines more closely resemble the flavors and textures you’d expect to get from a traditional bottle of wine. But how closely they come varies greatly among winemakers, depending on factors such as the grape varietals, the methods of fermentation used to make the wine, and possibly the dealcoholization process a winemaker uses.
Dealcoholizing wine always takes away some character and nuance in the process. As a 2021 review of dealcoholization methods published in the food science journal Foods notes, any method “can cause changes in color and losses of desirable volatile aroma compounds, which can subsequently affect the sensory quality and acceptability of the wine by consumers.” In other words, alcohol is not the only thing that’s removed in the process, and some of what’s missing can affect your enjoyment of the drink. Sugar or other additives are sometimes added to nonalcoholic wine to make up for that lost flavor.
For wine lovers seeking a great nonalcoholic wine, the potential absence of nuance can pose a barrier to finding a great bottle. “Good wine is very much a naturally made substance,” said New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov. “It’s the process of fermentation and fermenting grapes that come from a place, with as little technological manipulation as possible. Taking the alcohol out is a tremendous technological process … A lot of the attraction of wine is lost in that.” But don’t let that scare you away from trying nonalcoholic wines—we’ve still been able to find enjoyable dealcoholized options.
Wine alternatives, on the other hand, aim to replicate the taste, texture, and sensation of drinking wine by using ingredients that aren’t necessarily grapes, such as kombucha, tea, or vinegar. They do not undergo a process of dealcoholization (though some do contain minuscule amounts of alcohol). Wine alternatives don’t share wine’s DNA, but they do use techniques to attempt to create an experience that is analogous to drinking wine. In this guide, we tried both dealcoholized wines and wine alternatives.
Nonalcoholic wine goes under a few different names. The Food and Drug Administration has guidelines on how these labels should be applied, and it specifies that the “FDA does not consider the terms ‘nonalcoholic’ and ‘alcohol-free’ to be synonymous.” The terms “alcohol removed” and “dealcoholized” refer to wines that went through a dealcoholization process. These monikers, along with “nonalcoholic,” can also signal that the wines have 0.5% alcohol or less. Phrases like “zero alcohol” and “alcohol-free” should be used only on bottles that contain 0.0% alcohol (more on alcohol content below).
In this guide, we use the term dealcoholized for wine that had the alcohol removed. And we use the term wine alternative to describe nonalcoholic wines that did not go through these processes and that usually don’t have the typical ingredients you’d find in a bottle of wine.
What makes a good nonalcoholic wine?
Of course, people have varying preferences, based on their palates and expectations of what a wine should be. However, after scouring reviews of nonalcoholic wines on BevMo and Total Wine, we couldn’t help but notice an overwhelmingly large number of scathing reviews referencing thin or overly sweet flavors. Still, good nonalcoholic wines are out there. “Very serious wine makers have tackled this and have made great strides in terms of making something tasty and nonalcoholic,” Asimov said. Ultimately, to find the ideal bottle of nonalcoholic wine or an enjoyable wine alternative, you’ll need to navigate ingredients, alcohol content, flavor, and style. The experts we spoke with offered insight into what to expect.
Like a regular wine, a good nonalcoholic wine should have a layered flavor profile that’s also balanced. Still nonalcoholic wines in particular—especially reds—seem to have the hardest time retaining their complexities after dealcoholization. “It is really hard to nail that experience with the body and tannins and the flavor,” said Jillian Barkley, owner and founder of Soft Spirits, a nonalcoholic wine and spirits shop in Los Angeles. Whites, rosés, and sparkling wines all fared better in our tests. “I think sparkling versions take some of the sting out of losing the complexity and natural interest,” Asimov said. “Sparkling has more texture, more tactile interest than a flat wine that’s gone through this process.”
Wine alternatives approximate a wine-like experience using ingredients other than grapes. Most of the ones we tried for this guide had varying levels of sparkle, were kombucha- or tea-based, and were usually fermented. Successful examples of wine alternatives can replicate the feel of tannins on the palate, that nice mouth pucker you get from regular wine, and the waves of flavor that require slow sipping and appreciation. These bottles can have a vast roster of eclectic ingredients, ranging from beets to coffee to mushrooms. So the best approach may be to start by choosing bottles that have a base you like. For example, kombucha fans may enjoy ones with kombucha bases, whereas fans of drinking vinegar should look for that ingredient on the label. “If I’m going to drink something nonalcoholic, I would rather have something beautifully put together from ingredients that are not going to go through a process of creating alcohol,” Asimov said.
If you shop for wine with food in mind, dealcoholized wines are a more obvious one-for-one swap with regular wines—so food that pairs well with a regular chardonnay should also pair well with a nonalcoholic one. But that doesn’t mean the alternatives don’t have something to offer too. Though they often have strong bases of tea, kombucha, or vinegar, and they don’t have the same flavor profiles as dealcoholized wines made from grapes, they can still create fun food pairings. For each of our recommended bottles, we’ve suggested dishes you might enjoy them with.
