If you want a creative way to keep your drinks cold without using plain old frozen water, read on for 8 cool ways to chill your drinks (without any more terrible puns, I promise.)
1. Popsicles
Add more sweet flavor-y goodness while keeping it cool by dunking a popsicle in it. As the popsicle melt your cocktails will take on more flavor instead of becoming watered down.
You can match the flavors of your cocktail to enhance the flavor or mix it up by adding a different flavor entirely. You may want to lower the amount of juice and syrup in the cocktails you intend to put popsicles in, or not. Depends entirely on your tastes.
Examples
Match
Lime popsicle in a margarita or gimlet.
Cherry popsicle in an unfrozen cherry daiquiri.
Lemon popsicle in a Tom Collins.
Peach popsicle in a Fuzzy Navel.
Mix It Up
Grape popsicle in a lime margarita.
Orange popsicle in a French 75.
Raspberry popsicle in a gin gimlet.
Bomb pop in a vodka lemonade.
Get Creative
The blog post I retrieved this photo from has a fun idea for a homemade raspberry and peach popsicle in a glass of champagne for a take on the Bellini.
2. Light Up Reusable Ice Cubes
Indulge in your inner raver and drop these glowing club kid’s dream into your cocktails for a freaking awesome technicolor cocktail. Not only will these glowing LED ice cubes
3.Fruit Cubes
Infuse your ice cubes with berries, pieces of fruit, or citrus peels to give a gentle flavor change and a fucking awesome little snack at the end of the cocktail. Simply fill your ice cube tray with fruit or peels, cover in water, and freeze. These are perfect for any fruit flavored cocktail.
Like the popsicles, you can mix and match flavors, or use the floating cubes to provide a pop of contrasting color to your cocktails.
I used these in my Passion Fruit Sangria, the colorful cubes provided a nice color contrast to the yellowish sangria and helped amplify the delicious flavor of the slightly tart and (rather strong) sangria mix I made.
4.Whiskey Stones
Whiskey stones are available in a variety of different materials with granite, soapstone, and stainless steel being the most readily available. They’re great if you’re looking for something that keeps your drinks cold with adding any flavor or water. So if you like strong undiluted flavors or are just a fancy fucking flavor purist, these are for you.
You keep them in the freezer like regular ice cubes, and the stainless steel ones can a mirror-like shine of sophistication to a variety of drinks, not just pure whiskey.
Go all out with this Monogrammed Whiskey Stone Gift Box Set
5.Chill-able Glassware
HOST FREEZE Perfectly Chilled Wine Glass, Set of 2 – $25.95
from: HomeWetBar.com
There are a wide array of glasses (or I guess most are technically plasticware) that have a freezable gel inside. I have a friend who loves these ones, though from the customer reviews it seems there may be problems with some. The great thing about ordering from Amazon, though, is that they are awesome about replacing defective merchandise.
The rubber grips mean you can comfortably hold them without getting your hands cold and/or wet from condensation, you fancy dry handed person.
6. Frozen Fruit
Frozen fruit is anther method with endless possibilities that leaves you with a delicious snack at the end of your cocktail. Plus the vitamins from the fruit can help keep your liver healthy, meaning more drinking! (Or at least that’s what I tell myself.)
Examples
Frozen grapes can chill your wine without diluting the flavor. It can even help boost the flavor or subtly alter the flavor, providing a symmetry between the fresh and fermented grape flavors.
Frozen melon balls
Frozen melon balls provide a colorful way to chill your tall cocktails. Anything from a Tom Collins to lemonade benefit from these colorful spheres of fruity goodness. For you “Archer” fans, you can whip up a batch of Melon Ball cocktails that Archer will suck down without any misgivings about his manliness. Archer’s recipe from the show is 2 oz melon liqueur, 1 oz vodka, and topped with OJ or pineapple juice.
For step by step instructions on how to prepare your own frozen melon balls, visit this lovely blog.
Frozen Berries are fantastic with sangria, or really any fruit forward sweet cocktail. If you’re on a pesky diet, you can even make low calorie cocktails by mixing a vodka water or vodka seltzer and let the frozen berries impart a subtle sweet flavor. Strawberries are big enough to last as long as regular ice cubes, while smaller berries can be floated on martinis to help minimize gradual warming.
Frozen pineapple punch up any tiki drinks with both chilling power and visual appeal. Cut pineapple rings in half to make sure they can fit into the glass. Create a really fun experience by mixing them with…
Frozen cherries are both friends of pineapple, as well as providing a pop of bright red color. Go for two toned pink cocktail by serving a Cosmo over frozen cherries.
7.Sorbet/Shaved Ice
Much like the popsicle method, you can mix and match your flavors to create a fun flavor changing cocktail experience. Use a melon baller and/or ice cream scoop to create varying sizes of delicious flavored orbs to keep your cocktails cold and flavorful.
The creative culinary site has a delicious recipe for a strawberry sorbet and prosecco cocktail.
8. Frozen Mini Cocktails
Take your favorite cocktail recipe (or pre-bottled cocktail mixer), don’t add the booze and freeze them in cube form. Match it with the same cocktail later to experience an ever more flavorful cocktail as the mini-cocktails melt. You can even add a little more of the booze as the cubes melt for a long lasting cocktail that stays perfectly cold and perfectly flavored.
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