Cool Blender Drinks
for Hot Summer Days

To celebrate warm weather with your friends, try out some delicious new recipes for blender drinks, refreshing frozen drink recipes. Something with champagne, perhaps?

And get the scoop on how to buy a bar blender that will do the job right.

What could be better than a shaded patio or deck on a warm day, a few friends, and a few new frozen drinks for the blender.

Blender drinks are festive, refreshing, and easy, easy easy. Serve some up for dessert, even. Your guests will love the alternative to heavy desserts.

And many are excellent with or without the alcohol.

Blender Drink Recipes for 4

Generally, in a recipe calling for ice, 4 ice cubes per serving makes a slush and 8 makes a frozen drink. Your call. Personally, I usually prefer 6. Use fresh ice only, no been-in-the-freezer-too-long-with-the-fish taste allowed.

Strawberry Mimosa
8 ounces frozen sliced strawberries in syrup, partially thawed
8 ounces orange juice
16 ounces chilled champagne

Combine sliced berries and juice in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour over ice cubes or crushed ice in a parfait glass. Leave room to top the glass with champagne. Garnish with a whole strawberry and an orange slice.

Peach Delight
2 ripe fresh peaches
8 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate
8 ounces vodka
Ice

Combine all ingredients in a bar blender and blend until smooth. Serve in a highball glass.

Mint Daiquiri
4 teaspoons mint syrup (recipe below)
or 6 fresh mint leaves and 1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
8 ounces light rum, or 4 ounces light and 4 dark rum
Ice

Combine all ingredients in a bar blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a stemmed cocktail glass and garnish with a sprig of mint.

Mint Syrup: Bring a handful of fresh mint leaves, 1/2 cup water and 1/4 cup sugar to boil. Steep. Cool completely.

Mississippi Mud
I like to make this recipe with the addition of 4 or 5 ice cubes per serving and not quite as much liquor. It's not quite as sweet and potent that way, more suitable for a summer drink.

6 ounces Southern Comfort
6 ounces Kahlua
8 scoops vanilla ice cream
Shaved chocolate

Combine all ingredients but the chocolate in a blender and blend until smooth. Spoon the mixture into a cocktail glass and garnish with shaved chocolate.

A Brief Bar Blender Buying Guide

Crushing ice is the hardest thing a blender is called upon to do. Many a poor blender have sacrificed themselves to our Margaritas and Piña Coladas.

But bar blenders are different; they're designed to crush ice and make short work of our blender drinks.

Here are a few things to look for when purchasing a bar blender:

Power

• At least 350 watts. Higher end units have as much as 500 watts, enabling them to crush ice without adding liquid.

Speeds

• Pulse, High and Low speed settings are all that is absolutely necessary, but one with an Ice Crushing setting is best.

Design

• Wide, heavy base for stability. An overall machine weight of 5 pounds or more is recommended.
• Large capacity blender jar, at least 40 ounces, of stainless steel, strong polycarbonate, or glass. See-through is better for viewing the progress of your blender drinks. It should have a tight fitting lid with an opening in the top for adding ice or other ingredients. Optimally, the jar will open from the bottom as well for easy cleaning.

When is a good bar blender a bad idea? Peach Delight is one of my long-time favorite blender drinks. Once, I accidentally put the peach pits in the blender with the peaches and ice; darn if it didn't grind them up. Laetrile Delight, anyone?

Liane

Related Links:

Popular Mixed Drinks

More Blender Drinks: Margaritas

New! Comments