Let’s start with a scenario. You’ve just moved into your brand new home. Dinner consisted of Mickey D’s, and now you’d like a little something to wash down all those Big Macs. The only problem? Your blender is still packed away who knows where, and you’ve got a serious craving for something frothy, frozen, and fabulous.
Fortunately, you don’t need to buy another blender and have it delivered to your house in order to whip up a perfect frozen cocktail. Instead, you just need a plastic zip top bag and a little patience. That’s the word according to Caroline Pardilla, cocktail expert and author of “Margarita Time,” an upcoming book that contains over 60 different margarita recipes. As Pardilla told us in an interview, “Add the ingredients for your cocktail to a sealable plastic freezer bag and make sure to push out the air, then seal it. Lay it flat in your freezer for several hours until it’s frozen. Once it’s ready, squeeze that slushee into your glass.” Making a frozen cocktail without a blender really is that simple.
There’s another method for making frozen drinks
Frozen cocktails have a long history, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment with them. If you’re up for experimenting, Caroline Pardilla has a second suggestion for making frozen cocktails without a blender. As with the previous method, you’ll need some zip top bags. You’ll also need some ice cube trays. As Pardilla explained, “freeze the nonalcoholic elements of the cocktail in ice cube trays. For example, you can freeze your Margarita mix in the trays. Once frozen, add them to a sealable plastic bag and smash them up with a muddler or rolling pin. Add that to tequila in a glass and you have a frozen Margarita.” (You can also use ice cube trays to make a better-tasting dirty martini.)
It’s worth mentioning that you don’t need to wait until you move to break out these cocktail-making hacks. If you’re having a big party and you’ve run out of blender space (or your blender has just seen better days), use this trick to keep your party on track. Just make sure to use this pro tip to prevent your frozen cocktails from instantly melting.
