“Frozay” Cocktail for a Hot Summer Evening

 

What could be nicer on a hot evening than to have your friend make you a frozen wine cocktail? My friend Mary Tilson, host of KPFA’s America’s Back 40: All the Hicks from Coast to Coast, garnished our “frozay” wine cocktails with nasturtium flowers, basil, and rose geranium leaves from her tiny patio garden, where we sat and sipped the drinks, toasting our 40-year friendship.

This recipe requires some advance planning, so pick your party time and get going a couple days ahead.

Makes roughly 6 drinks

• Frozen berries
• Frozen strawberry shrub syrup (recipe below)
• Frozen rosé wine (recipe below), 2 cubes per drink
• Frozen iced tea (recipe below), 2 cubes per drink
• 1 chilled can sparkling citrus fruit juice (like Izze or San Pellegrino)
• 1 chilled can plain seltzer water
• Garnish: Edible flowers (like nasturtiums) and herb leaves (like sweet basil and rose geranium)

Make the frozen components a couple of days before, and when you’re ready to party, set up 6 glasses.

Place a layer of frozen berries in the bottom of each glass. Add a large spoonful of frozen strawberry shrub syrup, 2 cubes frozen rosé and 2  cubes frozen iced tea. Add sparkling citrus fruit juice and plain seltzer to fill the glass. Garnish with edible flowers and herb leaves.

Enjoy!

 

Make-ahead frozen strawberry shrub syrup

• 3 cups water
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 cups strawberries, washed, trimmed, and chopped
• 1 cup cider vinegar (or to taste)

Combine water and sugar in a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Add the strawberries and turn down the heat to low. Cook for at least an hour. (It can go longer if you want to concentrate the flavor.) Remove from heat, add 1 cup cider vinegar (or to taste) and let cool. Strain out the fruit and pour syrup into clean glass jars. For general use, keep refrigerated. For this cocktail, freeze the syrup in jar (leaving room for expansion while it freezes).

 

Make-ahead frozen iced tea

• 2 bags black tea (Mary uses an orange pekoe tea to get the iced tea flavor she remembers from her youth)
• 2 cups water

Brew the tea in a teapot and let tea bags sit in the pot so the tea becomes strong flavored. Once the tea is cool, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze.

 

Make-ahead frozen rosé

• 1 bottle rosé wine (quality matters)

Pour the wine into an ice cube tray and freeze.