How to Make the Best Frozen Cocktails

How to Make the Best Frozen Cocktails

4 minute read

Sweltering summer days call for frosty frozen cocktails. There’s nothing like a chilly, slushy Frozen Margarita or Piña Colada sipped poolside to make you feel like you’re at a bougie resort. If you’ve ever tried to recreate those dreamy drinks at home and ended up with an icy, flavorless drink, we’ve got your back.

Tips for Mixing a Damn Good Frozen Cocktail

When it comes to making delicious frozen cocktails, there are two hurdles home mixologists usually hit:

  1. Their blender isn’t strong enough to make a smooth blended drink.
  2. The ice waters down their cocktail and makes it bland.

But guess what: we’ve got fixes for both problems!

If Your Blender Isn’t Strong Enough…

Get your frozen element from another source! If your blended Daiquiri is more ice chunk than cocktail, it’s time to ditch that weak blender. Grab a bag of crushed ice from the corner store or dispense it from your fridge ice maker—or release some stress by thwacking a bag of ice cubes wrapped in a tea towel with a rolling pin. Nice. Then take that frosty crushed ice and mix up a classic Mint Julep!

If you’re feeling fruity instead, may we suggest sorbet? Sorbet cocktails mix booze with a scoop of sweet sorbet for an easy peasy summer cocktail that is SO refreshing. Pick your favorite fruity sorbet and pair it with a kick of liquor (prosecco is the classic choice) to find your perfect combo. Leave the sorbet floating in your booze for a slow melt or mix it gently to capture that slushy texture that a blended drink gives. Trust us—you’re gonna want seconds.

If Your Drinks Are Flavorless…

When a food or drink is cold, that makes it harder to taste the flavors—that’s why ice cream needs so much sugar and why it tastes sweeter when it’s melted! So if you take a tasty cocktail, make it super cold, and THEN dilute it with a bunch of ice, well…you’re going to end up with a bland drink. Some recipes compensate for this with super boozy and punchy ingredients to stand up to all the ice in a blended drink, and that can work. However, we have a simple method to keep flavors bold and unwanted water dilution farrrrrrr away from our drinks.

The answer is to reduce or entirely skip the plain water ice cubes and instead freeze your non-alcoholic ingredients! You’re not going to have much luck freezing liquors and liqueurs thanks to that alcohol content, but almost everything else is fair game. Want some powerful Piña Coladas? Pour your pineapple juice into an ice cube tray and pop that sucker in the freezer. Are you an iced coffee lover dreaming of a frosty Espresso Martini? Freeze your coffee (and maybe make extra cubes to put in your iced coffee too). If you’re looking to get extra fruity, use frozen fruit instead of ice! Try our Spicy Watermelon Cooler—a dreamy frozen watermelon Marg. Using this method, you’ll get all the slushy, icy goodness AND all the flavor you’re dreaming of with zero dilution.

Our Favorite Frozen Cocktail Recipes

These two cocktail recipes are serious people pleasers at any summer happy hour—and they’ll let you test drive both of our techniques for creating killer frozen drinks.

Gardener’s Delight

1 oz Lazy Afternoon-infused vodka
.5 oz Chambord
1 oz lemon juice
1 scoop lemon sorbet (or to taste)
Basil leaf for garnish

Add first four ingredients into a bowl and gently stir with a whisk until just combined—the texture should be slushy with no remaining chunks of sorbet. Pour into a cocktail glass, float a basil leaf on top, and sip on this sweet, tart, herbaceous dessert cocktail.

Sticky Fingers

2 oz Out of Office-infused rum
1 oz rosolio ⁣
1 oz lemon juice
1 cup frozen mango
Handful of ice
Hibiscus (or other edible flower) for garnish

Add first five ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Add more ice if desired for texture. Pour into highball glass and top with a colorful flower blossom and a straw. This is summer in a glass, baby.

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