Due to my failure to label containers, our freezer is where mysterious blocks of leftovers wait for a resurrection that may never come. I still often determine what any given ice-slab comprises only as it creeps toward room temperature - “A kidney bean has emerged! This must be chili!” The less said about the time I thawed a batch of buttercream frosting to find it was actually cauliflower-cashew soup, the better. The purported reason for these holdings, to have a speedy meal at hand, rarely transpires: By the time I remember them, my stomach is growling angrily at the thought of waiting for them to thaw.
Get the recipe: Batched Vieux Carré But for cocktails, the freezer is a far more efficient ally. A bottle of water frozen for four hours is an icicle; a bottled cocktail treated the same is a perfect drink. Because the freezing point for ethanol is so much lower (-173 Fahrenheit) than for water (which freezes at 32 F; freezers are meant to be set at 0 F), and because sugar (present in most cocktails in some form) also inhibits freezing, I regularly use my freezer to pre-prep drinks so they’re ready to go, for me or for any friends who happen to drop by.
Good freezer drinks can go in two directions: higher-proof cocktails, which stay liquid in the freezer, taking on a thicker syrupy quality (martinis, Manhattans, Negronis, etc.), and lower-proof, higher-water-content drinks that are designed to partially freeze and roll into your glass in slushy form (daiquiris and ot.