Portland's year-round Halloween bar Raven's Manor serves up tricks and treats

It's Halloween year-round at Raven's Manor, but October is an especially eerie time to head to the downtown bar.

What to expect: The heebie-jeebies, enhanced with blood spatter, candlelight and bar staff that refer to you as "victims."

• The playlist is cheery meets sinister — you're just as likely to hear the theme song from "Halloweentown" as you are those signature Michael Myers synthwave tunes.

🥃 I ordered the Vieuxdoo Carre, a rye-based cocktail that was essentially like a fall-spiced, slightly sweeter Manhattan, made with benedictine and an allspice dram.

• My husband's absinthe cocktail, The Necromancer, glowed in the dark.

Best bites: The bar does tricks and treats, making all its desserts from scratch.

• We split a skull-shaped flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and raspberry filling that was surprisingly delicious for a place where I wasn't expecting the food to be anything special.

🐓 If you go: Raven's Manor is serious about the dark and deadly. My cocktail came with an actual chicken foot to ward off evil spirits.

• Proceed with caution: 235 SW 1st Ave.