6 Easy Big Batch Cocktails Perfect for BBQs Graduation Parties Summer Potlucks More Allrecipes

How it all began? Freezer door cocktails are all the rage, they're so much fun, and they are perfect for these hot summer months. I've got six cocktails that I'm gonna show you that you can make in a big batch, keep them stored in the fridge or the freezer, so they're ready when you are. No prep required. It's the best martini ever. What's great about freezer door cocktails, like I said, they're ready when you are, but if you're having a party and you don't wanna be the bartender the whole night, having martinis ready to go is just clutch. I'm gonna show you three for the freezer and then three for the fridge, or perfect for your cooler to take down to the beach or the lake. Starting off strong with a big batch freezer door lemon drop. This thing is so refreshing, gets your lips puckering in those hot spring and summer months. It's just so good. For this one, it gets made in a 750 milliliter bottle. If you have that of vodka, that's great, but I usually buy my vodka by the handle. So for this recipe, just grab any kind of bottle that's at least 750 milliliters. It should fill this up perfectly. Okay, and I need a half a cup of fresh lemon juice. Fresh has to come from lemons, not from a bottle. I love to use a reamer for this. I find that this gets the most juice out. I do like to strain the juice after just for an extra insurance that you don't have any pulp in there. It's like extra tart, extra delicious. All right, next goes orange liqueur. You can use Cointreau or just Triple Sec. I like this for martinis more. It is important for these to be boozy and have the right amount of juice to alcohol ratio or else it will freeze. Sugar freezes, water freezes, so if you add too high of a ratio of sugary liquids to the alcohol, it's gonna freeze. All right, now to balance out the tart and the bite from the alcohol, some simple syrup. Simple syrup is just equal parts sugar and water. I like to go a little more, when I'm making cocktails, a little more sugar than water just so it's a little more syrupy, and that's it. I'm going to add in just a splash of water. This is going to make up for the dilution that happens when you shake it with ice like in a regular martini. So I'm just gonna now top it off with water. That's it. Give a little toss to the freezer, and we go. Icy cold and delicious. And this one's only gonna get better if you keep letting it go. But you know, I knew you wouldn't wait a couple days for me to make this video. So to serve this up, like you don't have to get off the shaker or anything. Get your glass though, put a little sugar rim on it. As this one continues to freeze, it gets like to where you can have the icy shards on top. So let it go. But see, it's already like frosting up the cup because you know it's cold. Starting off strong. This is better than any lemon drop I've ever gotten at a bar. And I'm not exaggerating, I'm not just telling you that. It's so good. It's boozy, but it is so fresh. You taste the fresh lemon, a little sugar rim, and it's ice cold. Just don't give me a drink if it's not ice cold. As cold as it can be, and then make it a little colder. This is that. I'm proud of this creation. This is my freezer door margarita. This one comes with a warning because it is potent, aka strong. A requirement with this one is that you have to shake it with ice. You can even top it with a little club soda or like a lemon-lime soda at the end because it does need to be diluted, whether it's just through shaking or by adding on a little topper. But I love this because I love a margarita, as you know, but to make it has like some of the most steps, you know, compared to other cocktails. So we're gonna go ahead and do all that to where all you have to do at the end is shake it up. If your lime is not really juicing very easily, you know the trick. About 15 to 20 seconds in the microwave loosens up the juice. Let's see if it works. I'm looking for 3 1⁄4 cup of fresh lime juice. Do not, under any circumstances, try to make this drink with the stuff in the plastic lime juice bottle. Not the same. Okay, got the lime juice. So you wanna take a liter of tequila. Pour off, but don't throw it away. Just save it for another use. To this, we're gonna add in our lime juice. You wanna strain it though. All right, now everything goes in. See how pretty it's looking. All right, then I'm going in with a 1⁄2 cup of triple sec and just enough room to sweeten it up, take out a little of that bite. About three tablespoons of agave and a pinch of salt because it's a margarita. That's it, people. Before I put it in the freezer, I wanna disperse that agave a little bit, kinda get it to dissolve in there. Because this is mostly alcohol, it's not gonna freeze. You can keep it in the fridge if you want, but for extra cold, keep it in the freezer. This is a thing of beauty. Now, you can buy those store-bought margaritas that even have booze in them, but they're not like this, okay? They have way more sugar and way more mixer. This is fresh and delicious. And I gave you the warning in the beginning, I'm gonna give it to you now. These are potent, these are strong. Drink responsibly. I said this one is all 100%, it's almost concentrated. So you have to shake it to dilute it, which is how margaritas are. You want them to be a little frothy at the top. That happens from shaking. So the ice is gonna dilute it a little bit. If you need it more diluted, which is also sometimes advised, top it with a little club soda. That's how I really have done them at home, just to keep stretching it, because these are so good. Pour it up and shake it up. Little more rocks, because you cannot have too many rocks. Not only is this probably gonna be in your top three favorite margaritas ever, this is what I consider a top-shelf margarita, okay? It's so fresh. If you like those electric green margaritas from the restaurant, this is not for you, okay? This is not for you. This is for people that like to sip and savor. Mm-hmm. I just need some chips and salsa. The 80s are calling, and they want their Cosmos back, and I'm here to deliver. I love a Cosmopolitan. Call me old-fashioned, but I think they're great. But I'm gonna give this a bright, springy, summery twist with a strawberry Cosmo. So instead of cranberry juice, I'm gonna use a strawberry simple syrup. Doesn't that sound delicious? I think it sounds so good. So good that I wanna make it. All right, I'm gonna start by making my strawberry simple syrup, just because the strawberries are so good right now. However, you can skip this step if you want. They make strawberry syrup in the cocktail section of the grocery store. I'm gonna give you a bonus recipe within this recipe and make some strawberry simple syrup. So you're gonna start by just cutting up some strawberries, about half a pound. This is really a great use if you have leftover or overripe strawberries, strawberries that are about to go bad. Those will make probably an even better simple syrup. Classic simple syrup, again, is equal parts sugar and water. Because I wanted a little more syrupy, I'm gonna do a little more sugar than water. So I'm gonna go in with a cup of sugar and then just about 3 1⁄4 of a cup of water. And we're just gonna bring this to a boil, stir it, kind of mash it up, and let it go for about 20 minutes. You're gonna bring this to a boil. You'll notice that it's already turning a beautiful pink color. I like to kind of give it just a little press just to kind of break up the strawberry just a little bit, but you don't wanna do it too much or your syrup will end up being a little cloudy. All right, our strawberry simple syrup is ready. So I'm just gonna strain it. Smells so good. All right, so we just need like a half a cup of our strawberry syrup for this. It's just gonna give it that perfect light pink color that we know and love in a Cosmo. I'm making this one in a one liter bottle. One liter is bigger than the 750 milliliters. So when you are making this, be sure you get a liter bottle of whatever kind of vodka you like. You're gonna pour off one and three quarters cup. And then you're left with just over half the bottle. To that, we're going in with three quarters cup of Cointreau or Triple Sec. And this also keeps it with an alcohol base and not too sugary to where it freezes. If these do freeze a little bit, A, I consider that a bonus. But if you don't like that, I mean, it only takes like 10 minutes to thaw out, shake it, and pour it in your glass. So I hope y'all make all these because I promise you, they're so good. And then half a cup of lime juice. I think I found me some juicier limes now. This is how you know when a lime is juicy. The skin has gotten smooth on the outside and it's thin. You can see the finger go in. That's gonna show you a juicy lime. Okay, lime juice in. Watch this turn from this to Cosmo with this beautiful strawberry simple syrup. And then we're gonna fill the rest with water to make up for the dilution when you would shake this. Probably only like two ounces. This is going to be delicious. Slightly darker than your normal Cosmo, but I really wanted to highlight the strawberry. Also, I just feel like I need to sample this. This is gonna be so good. To the freezer. Look how beautiful that is. Can we just take a minute to admire the color of a strawberry Cosmo? I really haven't even heard of this. I know I didn't make it up, but I kinda wanna take credit. I haven't seen it in freezer form because it's a Cosmo. Y'all are gonna think I'm just saying this, but I really feel like it's the best Cosmo I've ever had. Like it is so delightfully cold. It's just pleasantly sweet, not like just sweet enough, but tart from the lime. If I let it go a little longer, it's gonna have the shards of ice on the top. And to me, that is, like if you bring me a martini like that at a restaurant, I'll be posting it and singing your praises all day long. This is your girl's night. We've got our three in the freezer. Now I'm giving you three for the fridge or the cooler. These are the perfect ones to pack up and take down to the beach or on the boat or just keep in your fridge. These are going to be more juice forward, a little bit sweeter, so you can't put them in the freezer or they'll just freeze. And when I think summer cocktails, the three-letter word that comes to mind is rum. And when I think of a rum cocktail, first thing that comes to mind is a mojito. I'm giving you a watermelon mojito because then that's just like a picture of summer right there in a bottle. So I'm gonna make this in these jugs are already in the refrigerator section. I find these make great mixers. So the Limeade is perfect for this one. In a mojito, the ingredients besides rum are lime juice and simple syrup. And we know simple syrup is sugar and water. So when you look at the ingredients on this, it is water, lime juice, and sugar. To me, it's a one-stop shop. We're gonna mix it right in this jug. I just like the size of it and the fact that it's plastic, so it just can easily fit in the cooler. So I'm gonna pour out three cups and then we're gonna fill it with three cups of goodness. Okay, another thing we always have, we have watermelon in our fridge. It's my kid's favorite fruit by far, mine too. So to me, it's not really buying an extra ingredient. So I'm just going to puree this and then just strain it out. They sell watermelon juice, but I find this gives a better flavor. Because watermelon is water, you don't have to add anything to liquefy watermelon. It's got plenty on its own. All right, then you just wanna strain it out and we'll use about one and a quarter cup. If you like frozen drinks, cube up that watermelon and just keep it in your freezer in a baggie and then add that to your blender with some tequila or rum or vodka. Thank me later. I mean, let's make junk measuring cups. All right, then going the rest of the way with our rum. Almost done, but not quite. We're gonna make this look pretty. And also forgot a key ingredient to a mojito, fresh mint. It's the minty lime goodness. And mint and watermelon also happens to be delicious together. Typically in a mojito, you're going to muddle the mint with the lime. So you wanna kind of bruise these mint leaves. You wanna kind of tear them, slap them, and it just kind of releases those oils when you just smack them a little bit. So then I'm also gonna put some slices of lime in there just to really, you know, make it look good in there. Summer in a bottle right here. To the fridge, we go with this one. After it's been chilling, you wanna give it a good shake since you're not like shaking it up in a cocktail shaker and then pour, shake and pour over ice. Look how beautiful that looks. Little lime, little mint to remind you it's a mojito. Cheers to summer. Well, isn't that mint refreshing? Oh my goodness. This one might be the most surprising. I didn't even know if I was gonna love it as much as I love this right now. I mean, this is refreshing. This could get dangerous. Put this one in the cooler for sure. This is the one you break out for your spring and summer parties, brunch mode. How does an Italian Greyhound sound? A Greyhound is simply two ingredients. It is vodka or gin and grapefruit juice. This is one of the first drinks I had when I was like learning to drink, okay. And then I heard about an Italian version and you know I'm all in for that. Italian version is going to be adding Aperol or Campari which are just bitter Italian liqueurs. They kind of have like an orangey grapefruity flavor in there so this just sounds so good. You gotta make this one in the jug again. The ingredient in here is just grapefruit juice so there's no added sugar here. All right, into that. I'm going gin because I think gin and grapefruit are great. I've just been liking gin lately. One and three quarter cup gin going in. Gin going in, okay. And then our Aperol. I'm gonna do a half a cup. I'm gonna have a little room because I'm going to add in a little simple syrup because this packs the punch and the Aperol's really bitter so you do need a little sweetness to kind of balance it out. Just a little bit. All right, we're about to go back to the beaches of Hilton Head Island in 2001. That was just yesterday, right? Look how pretty that looks. Rosemary is the perfect garnish for this because it's just floral enough but you don't want to infuse it with that the whole time because it will become overpowering. So put in a little bit just to kind of get a little whiff as you sip. Okay. Do you know, if you salt the rim, it becomes a salty dog. For now it's just an Italian Graham. Why are they all so good? This, I think I said it when we made it, brunch. Mimosas are yesterday's news. The Italian Greyhound, the answer to all your summer parties. I mean, we are five for five with one to go. For my final trick, a bourbon cocktail because who says bourbon is just for football season but I'm using it to make a boozy Arnold Palmer. Arnold Palmer we know is half and half sweet tea and lemonade or unsweet tea and lemonade. If you want to make it boozy, a lot of times people will put vodka in it but bourbon is kind of a little more of a Southern twist but it is so good. What you're looking for is roughly like seven cups of sweet tea. So if you have one of these big jugs, just drink it down till you get just below the handle. Then you're going to add in your bourbon because it'll be easier and then you don't really have to measure your lemonade. Three cups of bourbon, sounds like a lot but this is 128 ounces, that's a lot of drinks. Instead of just going half and half, I do a little more tea than lemonade. I just think the bourbon with the tea is going to be delicious. Didn't even plan that, didn't even plan that. This is your easiest one of the day. Now you're just going to top it off with lemonade. That should bring you to about six cups of lemonade which happens to just about be the whole thing. This also goes by the name of the back nine. So you know how you're feeling on the back nine. I'm not even a golfer. I'm going to chill this one for just a bit and then it's happy hour. After a day on the course, you deserve a batch of these. I could see this cocktail for like a cookout, you know, because you always like barbecue with your sweet tea or lemonade and this has it both. Shake them all up. Looks like an Arnold Palmer. Going to taste like the dangerous counterpart. It's kind of scary that you really don't taste the bourbon. I'm just kidding, you do taste it. You know it's there. It's going to sneak up on you. The back nine, the John Daly, whatever you want to call it, it's a hole in one. Where do we go from here? How do we get, how do we top this? We just made six of the best drinks. No bartender required. Summer is the time to kick back and relax and one of these drinks, if not all of them, are going to help you do the trick. Go ahead, whip these up, keep them on hand and when your friends come over, they will be so impressed. The problem is, they might never leave.