When you're having people over for a party, cookout or barbecue, what do you serve for drinks? They can really add up, especially if any alcoholic beverages are involved. Instead of serving individual cocktails, you can save some money while still being festive, by mixing up some punch recipes. There are tons of them available and most are pretty simple to make as well. A nice Sangria type drink will also work. Mix inexpensive wine with fruit juice and soda water. Garnish with a bit of fruit, and you're all set. It's much less costly than serving individual glasses of wine or wine coolers.
We sometimes do the same thing with squash or fruit juice and lemonade for the kids or for anyone that doesn't want to drink alcohol. Mix up a punch and then they can have what they want. Another tip is to have smaller glasses. That way people won't have such a big amount in one go and that can help to save a little too. I always have some cheap coke and lemonade available too as these can make what you have go further. Some people will opt for a glass of that instead, say every other glass of alcohol. You can also freeze juice in an ice cube tray and then add the juice ice cubes to plain water or lemonade and that can add a little twist to it as people can mix their own "cocktail" by choosing what ice cubes they want.
I saw that on TV where they were freezing ice cubes with bits of lemon in them to add to a summer lemonade. I thought it looked really neat, and you could have the lemon in your drink. It seemed like a really good way to add even more flavor to a pitcher of lemonade for instance. However, I haven't used ice cube trays in forever. I would have to buy them specifically to use like that. My icemaker makes all the ice and cubes I want.
We are having people over this weekend for a BBQ. I love the idea of mixing up sangria, it's not super expensive and a nice summery drink. For the kids I buy juice boxes when they go on sale and stock up. We keep them in a cooler on ice and the kids can help themselves. It's easier than handing them cups and having half drunk drinks spilled all over the backyard. For the adults it's usually beer and coolers. I just found a great cooler. It's a sparkling alcoholic drink called Palm Bay.Log In They are great coolers. I picked them up at Costco for what worked out to about $1 a can. We'll put these on ice too.
If you are considering non- alchoholic drinks I think ice tea would be great because it is not that expensive. Otherwise I would suggest rootbeer floats. For that you would only need rootbeer and vanilla ice cream. It is really delicious and a great refreshment during hot days.
I always do lemonade because you can get some lemon juice for $1 and then just add some water and sugar to it. I can just buy one juice extract and stretch it out for a whole party.
I've had a lot of success with some white blanc recipes. I believe the one I used was a bottle of dry white sparkling wine (nothing too sweet, though!), some citrus, some seasonal fruit; I like to fortify it with some citrusy gin to cut down on some of the sweetness of the liqueur, and some sort of liqueur like Cointreau or St. Germain. I pour all of it into a pitcher full of ice cubes. I recommend large cubes, as they melt slower and are more aesthetically pleasing If you want something that you could batch easily, I'd recommend the Tom Collins. I've made pitchers upon pitchers of the stuff! The recipe I tend to make is 1oz of lemon juice, preferably fresh, but bottled is okay too; it sort of loses some of the aromatic appeal but the flavor is still there. Then 1oz of simple syrup and 1.50-2.00oz of gin. A handle of gin is around $15-20. Shake all ingredients, or stir well in a large container. Top with soda water and serve over cubed ice. I recommend putting all of the mixed ingredients into the pitcher without the soda water, so it can be added as it's being served to preserve the carbonation. Just multiply the recipe until you're at the amount you need. If you're making a large batch, you may want to water it down a little just because you'll lose some of the dilution that's present from shaking cocktails.Great for people who don't necessarily want to get wasted, and is very refreshing.
Not really a drink but try looking up how to make granita which is similar to a slushy only it's a lot more coarse since you don't use a specialized machine for it. It's great because it's like a shake and you can make it either alcoholic and non alcoholic and if you have enough freezer space you could make loads of it. You could also just try mixing fruit juices or what I like to do is to find some juice concentrates and I mix it in with sprite so it can serve as a type of fruit soda.
