How to Turn Any Alcohol Into Delicious Frozen Popsicles
Alcoholic popsicles are a great idea, but with ethanol’s low freezing point, it’s not as easy as tossing some booze into an ice cube tray and tossing it into the freezer. But don’t let that stop you from making great frozen, spirits. All you have to do is pay attention to the strength of the alcohol.
Below you will find general guidelines for working with beer, wine and liquor, as well as some delicious recipes that I have prepared just for you. All measurements are in “parts” and not in terms of volume, because I don’t know the volume of your ice cream pan, and thus it’s easier to scale. (And I know you’ll want to zoom in.)
But first, a little math
To make alcoholic ice that doesn’t crumble when you take it out of the mold, you need to aim for an overall strength of 8%. Some beers fall within this threshold, so you can freeze them as-is, but you will need to do a little bit of math when dealing with stronger beverages. Fortunately, this is very simple math. Using a basic dilution formula you may have learned in chemistry class, we can quickly determine how much booze we can add to our popsicles:
where “C” stands for “concentration” and “V” stands for volume.
Since we know what our final concentration should be, we can simply write “8%” for C2. Let’s also take the final 6 ounce popsicle volume and we’ll say we’re trying to make a spike from Hendrik, which is 44% ABV. (Note: It is very important that your concentration units are consistent throughout the equation. Use either percentage or proof, but not both.) So now our equation looks like this:
where V1 represents the volume of liquor we are going to add to our pop.
Rearranging the solution for V1, we get:
Obviously 1.1 ounce is a little annoying, so just round up to one ounce of liquor for five ounces of other liquid. Your pop will just freeze and have a whole shot of gin in it, which is great news for everyone. Anyway. I think math is enough for one day. Let’s make some scallops and booze.
Beersicles
Unless you work with imperial styles (imperial simply means “look how much alcohol we could fit into this beer!”), Most beers do not exceed the 8% limit. That means you can actually just toss some beer in the mold and finish the job, but it’s not very fun. Hot summer days always make me crave tart, fruity, sour, so I grabbed a bottle of Lychee tart ale from New Belgium and moved on.
Sour Cherry Beer Loop
Ingredients
- Fresh pitted cherries
- Good sour-tart beer with a strength of no more than 8%.
instructions
If you want to look unusual and pretty, cut some cherries and set them aside. (6-8 slices is a good amount for one serving.) Take a handful of pitted cherries and chop them with a food processor, blender, or blender. Combine 1 part cherry puree with 4 parts beer and stir to sizzle and calm the beer. Place a few pieces of cherries in tins and gently pour in the cherry beer. Insert sticks and freeze overnight.
Wine-O Pops
Wine alcohol content varies from bottle to bottle, but I usually go with 13-15% ABV, so I can use a very simple half wine: half wine ratio. You can of course buy a higher strength wine, just make sure you use the dilution calculation above to determine the correct ratio.
Rosé seems to be the official wine of the summer, so a rosé pop beer makes a lot of sense. The recipe below combines dry rose wine with a sweet elderflower drink (I used IKEA concentrate to whisk it) for a refreshing and aromatic popsicle that feels very delicious.
Pink elderberry ice cream
Ingredients:
- Dry rosé wine with a strength of no more than 15%.
- IKEA elderberry drink concentrate
Instructions:
Prepare an elderflower drink according to the directions on the bottle and mix with an equal amount of rose wine. Pour the mixture into molds, insert the sticks and freeze overnight.
Lick your liquor
The biggest benefit of freezing cocktails is that you can enjoy them while lying on the floating water in the pool without worrying about spills on your chest. The recipe below combines all of my summer favorites: my best gin, cool cucumber, and refreshing mint and lime.
Gin with cucumber and mint
Ingredients:
- 1 part gin (I use Hendrick’s for the quality of the cucumber)
- 5 parts limada
- 4 fresh mint leaves
- Fresh cucumber, seeded and cut into strips
Instructions:
Toss the mint leaves into the gin glass and beat them to the brim. Strain the gin into the lemonade and stir. Place the cucumber sticks horizontally in the mold and gently pour the gin-limade mixture into the mold. Freeze overnight.
Of course, you are not limited to my recipes. Using the above equation, you can go a step further and make frozen alcoholic drinks from any booze you see fit. So dream big and go crazy, and remember not to take it all too seriously. Sometimes things just don’t freeze, but that’s okay. Then you have an alcoholic slush, and there is nothing to complain about.