5 Ideal Cocktails to Batch for Summer Gatherings

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Summertime imbibing should be as easy as an afternoon breeze. Sure, you could simply crack open a few cold ones, or uncork rosé all day, but sometimes the occasion calls for a somewhat more elaborate beverage selection. Cocktails are just the thing, but they present another conundrum: Someone has to make them.

Batch-made cocktails, of course, are the elegant solution to this frankly fairly luxurious problem. You can scale up many recipes to serve the whole squad, but some are more suitable for the summer months. There are also plenty of drinks that just don’t hold up as well to the supersized treatment. Perky Champagne tipples are terrific for warmer weather, for example, but their bubbles will fade fast in something like a pitcher or punch bowl. Our picks for batched summer cocktails, instead, will not only hold up to the necessary multiplication, but also to travel and almost any atmospheric conditions.

The classic of the genre, pitchers of margaritas signal good times and celebrations all over the globe. The perfect margarita ratio requires just three ingredients for excellence, and they’re a cinch to expand. A little less than a bottle of your favorite tequila, a couple cups of triple sec, and another 16 ounces of fresh lime juice is plenty to fill that festive vessel, stir with ice, and serve a crowd. Santa Cruz organic lime juice is indistinguishable from fresh squeezed, should you seek an even shorter cut.

A little gin on a hot summer day is just the booze to make those lazy afternoons seem even more languid. Named for the writer as famed for his copy as he was for his fondness for hooch, the Fitzgerald mixes its spirit with lemon juice, simple syrup, and a few dashes of bitters for a sweetish, neat-tart sipper. It’s another easy one to increase with a two-to-one ratio of the liquor, citrus, and sweetener, plus several shakes of the bitters to taste. You can also stir it up in a pitcher, or portion into reusable glass bottles for shaking.

Every fête needs a pink drink, and the cosmopolitan is the premier classic of the genre. Thanks to the cranberry juice and splash of lime that sends vodka soaring to the proper cocktail category, it’s as fruity as a poolside sipper should be, and its little bit of triple sec keeps it all from tasting too sour. Nearly all of a standard-sized bottle of vodka, plus 12 ounces each of the other ingredients will make 12 drinks. And wouldn’t these be fun to ladle out of a giant, goofy cocktail shaker à la Ina Garten?

Bourbon is often associated with more autumnal drinks, but it can also be a summery stunner year-round. Most paper plane preparations call for just shy of an ounce each of the bourbon, amaro nonino, Aperol, and lemon juice, making it easy to stretch with minimal arithmetic. This one also requires an animated shake for optimal results, and you can get three drinks in a cocktail shaker at once, if you only have access to standard-sized barware.

While the fun, frozen drinks that plenty of folks associate with the word daiquiri are also tops for hot nights, they aren’t super conducive to the long game of batch-making. They’ll melt, for one, and all that blending can be a headache in any case. The combination of white rum, lime, and simple syrup in true daiquiri, however, can be just as refreshing. Make a whole bunch with a couple of cups of the booze, plus ¾ of a cup each of the juice and simple. You’ll want to shake this one with ice, too, so maybe those extra-large shakers aren’t so silly, after all.