Every Friday morning I make a cocktail (for work), and every Friday morning I resist the urge to drink the entire cocktail right then. I taste it, obviously, but I’m not as young as I once was, and writing while drunk is not as fun as Hemingway said it would be. Instead of dumping the drink down the drain ” which would be dumb and wasteful ” I’ve been pouring them into little jars and stashing them in the freezer to enjoy later ” which is smart and good.
Sometimes I forget about the cocktail by the time Friday evening rolls around, but I always remember it when I need it. Nothing quells an emotional emergency quite like a cocktail, but crafting a cocktail in the middle of an emotional emergency is not ideal. Having a bunch of ready-to-drink cocktails sealed in little jars is intrinsically good, is what I’m saying. It’s exactly like meal planning, except with alcohol instead of chicken breasts.
And while I have talked about batching cocktails before, this is a little different. For one, I’m not making one big bottle of one kind of cocktail; I’m making single servings of a lot of different cocktails, because I love variety. I usually make them for work, but your job might be a little different, so you can make them whenever you usually make cocktails ” just make an extra each time. Before you know it, you’ll have a freezer full of alcoholic beverages ready for emergency use. You can also incorporate cocktail making into your regular meal planning, if that is something you do.
Not all cocktails have the same ABV, and those with a lot of juice are prone to turning into slushies in the freezer, but this has never bothered me. It happens less with the classics, though: Even with the dilution caused by stirring, all-booze beverages like martinis and Manhattans won’t freeze, but they will become intensely dense and incredibly cold, which is a wonderful treat for the senses. You can dilute them directly with a little water instead of stirring over ice (PUNCH provides a formula for this), but I usually just make the cocktail and stir as I usually would before straining it into a jar, preferably a Bonne Maman jam jar.
Really though, there’s no need to overthink it: Any time you make a cocktail, make an extra and pop it in the freezer. Any time you have a little bit of downtime, make a cocktail and pop it in the freezer. Any time you meal prep, make a couple of cocktails and pop them in the freezer. It’s called planning ahead, and while I don’t do that kind of thing often, I sometimes do it really well.
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