This Winter’s Hottest Cocktail Trend? Frozen Drinks
When an arctic blast froze New York City to the bones during the first week post-New Year’s, many locals stayed inside. January is always a tough month for bar owners — thank you, Dry January! — and many spots I ventured to were fairly empty. You would expect, for the few drinkers brave enough to bundle up and venture out, that a menu of winter warmers would greet them — hot toddies and the like. Instead, many bars I drank at were serving seasonal frozen drinks.
At Porchlight on Manhattan’s West Side, the bar had filled its Kelvin Slush machine with a Frozen Coquito and Frozen Candy Cane Negroni. Drinkers were encouraged to enjoy them layered together in what the bar dubbed the Après Ski Miami Vice.
“We actually sell quite a few frozen drinks throughout the winter,” says Porchlight’s assistant general manager Jason Pointek. He thinks one reason is that the frozen machine is so visible to guests entering Porchlight — prominently set behind the bar, you notice it the moment you enter. By then you’ll learn that all the bar’s winter frozen drinks are always made with seasonal flavors. “[They] feature different ingredients that accommodate the needs of a frozen cocktail and winter-seasonal cocktail simultaneously.”
Indeed, many bars have learned that despite icy temperatures, plenty of drinkers inexplicably want their drinks to also remain frozen. Maybe it’s because both winter drinks and frozen drinks skew creamy and decadent. Perhaps it’s a paradoxical way for the bundled-up drinker to feel warmer. Or maybe, frozen drinks should truly be an all-year sensation.
Certainly Puzzling
“The winter frozen drinks scenario is certainly puzzling,” says Long Island Bar co-owner Toby Ceccini.
Despite the huge success of a summer frozen drinks program featuring Piña Coladas and frozen Cosmopolitans, for years he would mothball his Brooklyn spot’s high-end Spaceman machine come November. That was until two years ago when Cecchini decided to put his off-menu eggnog recipe — which he had typically offered as a gratis lagniappe for dessert — into the machine.
“It was instant mayhem,” he recalls.
And it remains a sensation. In fact, when the bar’s machine went down recently, Ceccini claims customers were “gnashing teeth” demanding its return.
The frozen eggnog might be as close as there is to a classic and ubiquitous winter frozen drink. And New Orleans is as good a candidate as any for the capital of frozen eggnog — sometimes dubbed a Cajun Eggnog or Eggnog Daiquiri — with several places serving a version when winter strikes. New Orleans Original Daiquiris offers one among its many frozen offerings. The Blue Crab Restaurant does as well. As does Cochon Butcher.
Credit: Long Island Bar via Instagram
Ceccini believes you have to serve a wintry flavored frozen cocktail for it to sell. Something like an eggnog or a frozen Grasshopper, the latter of which he typically adds to the machine sometime in January. Conversely, when he kept his wildly popular summer favorite, the frozen Cosmopolitan, on this winter, its sales plummeted.
“The category has transcended its ‘fun in the sun’ seasonal nature and we put the same effort into seasonality of category as our non-frozen menu.”
“Seems like the kind of citrusy, grabby frozen drink that people crave in the heat is the antithesis of the kind of thick, creamy treat that pings a nerve in the colder months,” Cecchini says.
Do You Stop Eating Ice Cream?!
Even bars that don’t exactly deal in seasonal flavors continue to find great success with frozen drinks in the winter.
Manhattan’s The Dead Rabbit serves its Frozen Irish Coffee year-round as part of an expansive Irish Coffee Cocktail menu. As do Erin Rose in New Orleans and Nickel City in Austin.
“People keep drinking frozens even in the cold because of one reason: they’re delicious,” says Ian Alexander, general manager at The Dead Rabbit NYC. “Do you stop eating ice cream in the winter? I think not.”
Some year-round frozen favorites have become so iconic for their respective bars that they indeed sell well even in the coldest months. The East Village’s Superbueno perpetually offers a frozen Adobada Bam Bam, made from mezcal, grilled pineapple, adobada falernum, pineapple juice, and lemon. Denver’s Yacht Club similarly serves its Frozen Banana Daiquiri year-round. Bar Primi in New York’s Penn District currently serves a Roman Holiday, made from Lambrusco Reggiano, Cappelletti, and blood orange.
Credit: Superbueno via Instagram
“Frozen drinks are joyful and delicious,” says beverage director Josh Nadel. He notes that guests’ demand for frozen drinks is high year-round. “The category has transcended its ‘fun in the sun’ seasonal nature and we put the same effort into seasonality of category as our non-frozen menu,” he says.
The Search for Cozy
Then again, not all bars are finding success with frozen drinks in the winter.
Credit: The Dead Rabbit via Facebook
When Brooklyn’s Grand Army Bar launched its astrology-themed fall/winter menu in late October, it featured one frozen drink. Called Gemini and created by general manager Ally Marrone, the spirit-forward drink fused Diplomático Mantuano Dark Aged Rum, La Cigarrera Amontillado Sherry, almond milk, salted potato chip syrup, and a slew of minty and coffee-based liqueurs. Garnished with potato chips, and meant to resemble a sort of peppermint mocha, it certainly fit the bill for a frozen drink that would crush it all winter long.
Yet, despite being absolutely delicious, it stopped selling once the town entered a deep freeze. Patty Dennison, Grand Army’s bartender, chalks it up to a pure vibe’s issue.
“Grand Army is such a cozy bar in the winter months, with the fireplace,” she says. “So we switched [out] the Gemini with the colder weather that New York City is having this year.”
Dennison ultimately replaced it with a hot cocktail.
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