“This is my suspension. It keeps these dateviators running… A Suspension of Disbelief” - Skylar Specs from Date Everything!

Inspiration

The first dateable in the game Date Everything! is the object that makes the whole experience possible: the Dateviator shades and their personification, Skylar Specs. Inspired by her sense of humor, heartfelt outlook, and bright personality, I crafted my own rose-tinted shades as well as a pair of drinks. Skylar’s cocktail is a hibiscus-boosted riff on the Aviation, layered with violet and maraschino liqueur and balanced by rose petal. Her mocktail, while lacking gin, distinguishes itself with concentrated hibiscus tea and clarified passion fruit juice, symbolizing both the clarity her glasses provide and the passion she brings to love.

Workshopping

The Dateviation

If you were to Google search (as of today, August 18th, 2025) for a “pink aviation cocktail” or a “red aviation cocktail,” you would struggle to find a true riff on the Aviation that highlights a pink or red hue. A few versions lean faintly pink or reddish, but none stray far from the original recipe. One common shortcut is using butterfly pea flower gin for its color-changing effect, but that felt too gimmicky for a drink inspired by the literal personification of pink aviator glasses that let you D.A.T.E (Directly Acknowledge a Thing's Existence) everything. I wanted something more intentional, so I set out to craft my own.

To build this new riff, I started by researching classic Aviation recipes. At its core, the cocktail combines gin, maraschino liqueur, crème de violette, and lemon juice. The gin is consistent at about 1.5 to 2 oz (45–60 ml), but the ratios of the other ingredients vary. Some recipes lean sour with extra lemon juice, others floral with more crème de violette, and some sweeter with heavier maraschino. I chose a base recipe from Cocktail Codex that emphasized floral notes: 2 oz (60 ml) gin, 1/4 oz (7.5 ml) crème de violette, 1 tsp (5 ml) maraschino liqueur, 3/4 oz (22.5 ml) lemon juice, and 1/2 oz (15 ml) simple syrup. Aviation Gin was the obvious choice here, but the Cocktail Codex version uses Plymouth Gin. While the team at Death & Co prioritizes balance, I prioritize thematic resonance.

With a solid foundation in place, I began imagining how to make the drink uniquely Skylar. Since she embodies the Dateviator glasses, I envisioned a pink version of the Aviation, nodding to her theme song “Rose Colored” by Garrett Williamson. This led me to lean into the theme with rose syrup. In my mind’s eye, the Dateviation sat in a tall coupe, adorned with edible heart garnishes and a spiraling ribbon (a reference to her “Suspension of Disbelief”), seemingly supporting the bowl of the glass above. Each heart would carry a flavor tied to the ingredients: rose water for white, passion fruit for orange-yellow, and hibiscus for red-pink. The idea for flavored hearts was also inspired by community member Peter_M_07, who had suggested a similar concept with different flavors.

By this point, I had everything I needed: a clear base recipe, chosen ingredients, and a vivid image of the finished cocktail. From here, it was time to experiment. And, like love itself, the process came with complications.

Spectral Energy Flowers Through and Around

I began my workshopping by exploring different ways to achieve a pink hue in the Aviation. I started with butterfly pea flower gin, pomegranate juice, rose petal syrup, passion fruit purée, and red hibiscus flowers. The pomegranate juice I used (365 brand from Whole Foods) produced a brownish tone rather than the desired red. Rose syrup was delicate in color and disappeared when mixed with other ingredients. Butterfly pea flower gin shifted pink with acid, but without pH strips at the time, I couldn’t precisely measure the balance, and the effect felt more like a gimmick than a tribute to Skylar. Passion fruit purée (Pitaya Foods brand) came through bright orange and overwhelmed the drink's color, so I clarified it with Pectinex Ultra-SPL over the next few hours to tame both color and intensity. In the end, hibiscus stood out as the winner: a bold red that, when diluted by shaking, promised to lean closer toward Skylar’s signature pink.

While waiting on the clarified passion fruit, I leaned into the hibiscus by infusing it into Aviation Gin. Following the method outlined in Tropical Standard for hibiscus‑infused tequila, I adapted the recipe for gin as follows:

Hibiscus-Infused Gin:

• 375 ml Aviation Gin

• 15 g Dried Hibiscus Flowers

• Combine the gin and hibiscus flowers in a sealed container and let infuse for 90 minutes. After infusion, strain out the solids and transfer the liquid to a clean bottle.

With the gin infusion complete, I began slotting pieces into the Aviation framework: hibiscus gin instead of plain gin, rose syrup in place of simple, and a slightly reduced measure of lemon juice since the hibiscus runs sour. The result poured much redder than expected, but the flavor was vibrant and compelling. It had less emphasis on violet than a traditional Aviation, yet layers of dry, tart, and almost vegetal notes from the hibiscus and rose gave it depth. Compared to the clean, crisp Aviation, the Dateviation was expressive, layered, and appropriately passionate. Ironically, I had completely forgotten about the clarified passion fruit purée, but I didn’t miss it until I started thinking ahead to the mocktail.

This left me with a resolved cocktail, distinctly fruity despite its floral lineup, and a natural bridge toward the next challenge: crafting garnishes as vivid as the drink itself. That’s where edible colored isomalt candies come into play.

Shades with Heart(s)

Skylar’s character portrait features a number of colorful hearts: pink and yellow ones for the buttons on her vest, and white, yellow, and pink ones in her welt pocket, with her entire skirt patterned in shades between pink, yellow, and white. Inspired by this, I decided to make my own edible hearts. The advantage of a homemade approach was that I could choose the colors and flavors myself, instead of painstakingly sorting through store-bought conversation hearts (which, as of August, were out of season). My tool of choice was a bag of isomalt.

I had seen several videos from fellow cocktail creators praising the versatility of isomalt, a sugar substitute that, when heated, becomes almost perfectly clear and, while it can yellow at very high temperatures, it resists yellowing or caramelizing much longer than regular sugar. I had never worked with it before, so I was eager to experiment. My plan was to use small heart molds and make three batches: a red batch flavored with hibiscus, a yellow-orange batch flavored with passion fruit purée, and a white batch flavored with rose water. Heating up the isomalt was fascinating. It came as pebble-sized white beads that, once heated in a pan, turned clear, flowy, and bubbly. Allowing it to settle at a lower heat made the bubbles disappear, and I could then pour it freely onto a silicone mat where it would solidify (and remain pliable for a short while before cooling completely). So far, it seemed manageable until I started experimenting with colors and flavors.

That’s when the complications began. The silicone heart molds I had purchased were not as bite-sized as I thought; instead, they measured about 2” by 2” and were large enough to function as lenses. Since I couldn’t make tiny hearts, I decided to embrace the size and put them to good use. I came up with the idea of creating a pair of heart-shaped spectacles. To do this, I poured uncolored isomalt into the heart-shaped molds, let them cool, then heated pieces of food-safe wire so I could insert them into the still-warm candy lenses. With some trial and error, I fashioned one wire into a bridge connecting two clear candy hearts and bent two others into arms to serve as temples. The first prototype still had bubbles in the lenses, but I discovered that by carefully applying a butane torch to the surface, I could bring the bubbles to the top and smooth them out.

Next came flavoring the hearts. They weren’t the small candies I originally envisioned (unless I attempted shaping them by hand, which I left to a future version of myself), but I still wanted them to taste good. Unfortunately, adding liquids like hibiscus tea or passion fruit purée caused the hot isomalt to sputter, bubble, and splash. I couldn’t get flavor to infuse into the candy, nor could I keep colors stable without the added ingredients burning in the pan and darkening the mix. At the time, I didn’t have an infrared thermometer, so I was essentially working blind, despite my new candy glasses. Eventually, I learned that the recommended method for flavoring and coloring isomalt is to use oil-based additives. I didn’t have hibiscus, rose, or passion fruit flavors in that form, only a miscellaneous collection of other fruit oils. Luckily, I did have some oil-based food colors and was able to create a rose-tinted set of candy glasses, along with a few other colors for the photoshoot.

One important note is that isomalt candies should be stored at room temperature in areas with low humidity. At the time of writing, it was hot and humid during the XBar’s summer, and the candies became very sticky as a result.

SPECS-ial Order: No Alcohol!

Following the cocktail’s creation, I began working on the non-alcoholic version of the Dateviation. When I searched for non-alcoholic Aviation cocktail variants, I found recipes on spirit-alternative brands’ websites that swapped in their proprietary blends for gin. Brand placement? No thanks. One site claimed that maraschino cherry juice (the neon red, artificially colored stuff) could replace maraschino liqueur, which is simply incorrect. On the same site, they suggested replacing crème de violette with lavender syrup, an entirely different flower! No problem, I thought, I’ll just make my own. Take matters into my own hands. I don’t need sunlight or a real job, dammit! I’ll put on my sticky rose-tinted candy shades, roll up my sleeves, and stay indoors workshopping a non-alcoholic beverage for that lady I see when I put my glasses on… The concept of Date Everything! is starting to sound a bit more concerning now.

Anyway, I immediately figured that hibiscus tea would serve as the base of the mocktail. Essentially, instead of infusing gin, I was infusing water. To avoid excess dilution, I planned to reduce the tea down to concentrate the flavors. I took the leftover hibiscus flowers from my gin infusion, placed them in 5 cups of filtered water, and simmered on low until I had reduced the deeply colored tea to 63% of its original weight. Essentially, I created what some of my livestream viewers have taught me is called “Agua de Jamaica,” albeit without any added sugar at this point.

By this time, the passion fruit purée had finished clarifying, and a bottle of commercial non-alcoholic violet syrup (Monin brand) had arrived in the mail. Despite being clarified, the passion fruit purée retained its intensely sour flavor, which I figured could add complexity to the mocktail that might otherwise be missing compared to the cocktail. I incrementally added small amounts of the following ingredients: hibiscus tea reduction, rose petal syrup, clarified passion fruit juice, and violet syrup. The demo drinks shifted from being tangy and violet-forward in an equal-parts format. Hibiscus came to the forefront as I added more tea reduction. Increasing the passion fruit caused it to overwhelm the mix, so I backtracked and added a touch of lemon juice to balance the sourness. Eventually, I landed on the following combination of ingredients.

Dateviation (Skylar Specs) Mocktail:

• 1.5 oz (45 ml) Hibiscus Tea Reduction

• 0.75 oz (22.5 ml) Rose Petal Syrup

• 0.5 oz (15 ml) Clarified Passion Fruit Juice

• 0.5 oz (15 ml) Violet Syrup (Monin)

• 0.25 oz (7.5 ml) Lemon Juice

• Method: Shake & Double-Strain

• Garnish: Colored Isomalt Hearts or Isomalt Spectacles

Final Thoughts

Looking back on this recipe, I kept going back and forth on two main points: the color of the drink and the asymmetric use of passion fruit (present in the mocktail but not in the cocktail). For the color, Skylar’s character portrait prominently features white, pink, yellow, and orange, but no red. Yet my use of red hibiscus imparted a strong crimson tone to both drinks. At the time, I didn’t have access to other hibiscus varieties that might have created a softer blush.

As for passion fruit, I considered adjusting the cocktail by splitting the lemon juice with passion fruit, since it is also sour and acidic. However, the clarified passion fruit juice I used was quite assertive. It paired beautifully in the mocktail alongside concentrated hibiscus tea, but overwhelmed the infused gin in the cocktail, erasing the subtle botanical notes that give gin its charm. In the mocktail, without gin competing for attention, the passion fruit added that extra complexity which mimicked the layered feel of a spirit-based drink, without needing the spirit itself. That balance convinced me it belonged solely in the mocktail. At least, that’s how I see it.