Sloshies

ARC provided by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

YUMMY!

I am always looking for good drink recipes and I cannot wait to try these out. It is really cold here now so a frozen cocktail is not on the menu but I promise on the first sunny day I am breaking out some of these.

There are lots of brand new concoctions that I have never heard of and they all sound great.

There is about 18 inches of snow on the ground in Helena, Montana at the moment. And I am eyeing all that snow wondering if I could convert it to one or more of these sloshies. Unfortunately, I need to make a run to the store for some of the 'ingredients', but it beats going for bread, milk and toilet paper. I NEED a copy of this book! Living with my two, now grown daughters, these are such fun sounding drinks. A far cry from the faux-strawberry margaritas I use to make for us in the summer. And the wine slushies we made this past summer. As soon as the roads are driveable, off to the store for sloshie supplies!

Ohh, this book promises so much, and totally delivers on every level.

The cover is enticing. The layout is simple and attractive. I normally dislike the ramble at the start of 'cook' books, as they always start from such a basic level, but in this case, I really appreciated it, as sloshies are relatively novel to me and they were pitched just at the right level.

I love the layout of this book. My only concern would be the number of bottles of alcohol I would need in order to try all of them, although the index of drinks by liquor is really useful to identify all the drinks for a particular liquor. This is probably one of the only books that I will actually purchase, in addition to doing the review, as I think it is so great.

My only recommendation would be to number the drink recipes - there are 102, which is a pretty prominent part of the title. I would like to do a tracker for all 102, and rate which ones I like. This is likely to take years - happy years!

Since the last purely fun cookbook that I read was Day Drinking by Kat Odell three months ago, I figured I was due to read something absolutely frivolous and carefree. Sloshies was my book of choice, and I was ever so glad that I picked it up. This book was so much fun that I gulped down all 165 pages in under 24 hours.

The first thirty or so pages of the book provide some background on Snow & Co, the author’s frozen cocktail bars, and detail how to be successful in crafting a frozen cocktail. The author’s hope is that his book provokes the cocktail world to make frozen cocktails as amazing as anything else inside their bars, made with focus and care similar to that seen in the contemporary craft cocktail scene. Frozen cocktails are different than standard cocktails because you need to balance spirits and other ingredients in a way that will allow the mixture to freeze correctly using common equipment. And the equipment Is fairly simple: the suggestion is to start with the freezer bag method – just a ziplock freezer bag and a freezer – and some additional equipment such as jiggers, juicers, strainers, an immersion blender, and jars for infusions. I loved that they had pictures of the glassware alongside the short paragraphs describing the basic purposes of the glassware. In this section, the author also included an awesome chart of three types of basic syrups and six types of infused syrups (based on 16 ounces of simple syrup). He also included three pages of recipes for infused liquors. There were some really clever ideas on “Frozen Flair” such as stenciling the top of the drink with colored sugar and garnishing with infused fruit skewers or flower blossoms.

The over one hundred pages of recipes are organized by flavor profile: tart, sweet, spiced, and floral. The majority of the recipe titles are really clever, with lots of pop culture references like “LaunchPad McQuack,” “Vesper’s Variation,” “Winter is Coming,” and “Gandalf’s Staff.” Along the left hand side of each recipe is a snarky or clever headnote, the alcohol by volume percentage, the recommended serving glass, and the recommended garnish. The ingredients are listed in order of cost – least expensive first, most expensive last, with whole milk listed dead last. The thought process behind that was that if you made a mistake early on, it wouldn’t be as costly as if they were listed in a different order. Alcoholic ingredients are in bold and underlined. The ingredient list names specific brands of liquor but, according to an earlier call out box, that is more to indicate what is used at the Snow & Co. bar than to tie the hands of the home bartender. The home bartender is free to make brand substitutions as appropriate. That is good to know, since several of the recipes use local Kansas City ingredients like Boulevard Beer. The measurements can get a little odd; measurements often include fractional ¼ or ¾ ounces. For the most part, the recipe steps are pretty standard and simple: combine, freeze, serve. Recipes with whole milk have an extra “blend” step to prevent curdling. But kudos to the author for writing each recipe so it could stand alone, without reference back to the front matter or to other recipes. The last recipe – or three – of each section is alcohol free so that designated drivers and other abstainers from alcohol can get some benefit from the book as well.

Appendix #1 lists five different tried and true combinations of cocktail flavors plus two more free-form variations of flavor combinations. Appendix #2 discusses the beauty of serving flights of frozen cocktails, as well as some of the specifics on how to pour them and keep them from getting soupy. There are also eight suggestions for flight patterns, which are all very interesting. Appendix #3 is simply an alphabetical list of the frozen cocktails in the book, while Appendix #4 is a list of the frozen cocktails organized by liquor. Closely examining Appendix #4 provides an excellent overview of the wide variety of liquors used in the frozen cocktails: alphabetically the liquors range from absinthe to X-Rated Liqueur, and include five types of wine, at least two types of whiskey, two types of rum, two types of vermouth, and four types of vodka.

There is a two-page spread of full-color food photography at the beginning of each recipe chapter, usually showing four to six drinks. This gives a good idea as to what some of the finished products should look like. Most of the recipes have comical little illustrations on them, which make the book really fun.

I was very impressed by the range of creativity of the recipes in this book. I was really concerned that several recipes would be just slight variations on each other, but that was rarely the case. And when it was, the author was very up front about it. The ingredients used were pretty amazing: everything from Italian prosecco and limoncello to American craft ales and shrubs. Of course, I found my favorite craft cocktails in frozen form: the Bellini (A Kick to the Peaches), the Manhattan (The Rockefeller), and the Negroni (Frozoni). After reading an entire book on Bloody Marys, I was a little shocked to see that their frozen version included milk, but I suppose I’ll just have to try it before passing judgment on it. A few of the ingredients may be hard to find - like hibiscus liqueur, jasmine liqueur, falernum liqueur, and some of the specific shrubs - but there are more than enough recipes with strictly common ingredients, especially when you consider that they encourage substitutions, that pretty much anyone can find something that would appeal to them in this book.

Although I have marked several recipes as “must try,” I have yet to test any of the recipes from this book. When I do, I will update my review.

Looking forward to the summer to try these recipes out. Full review to come nearer publication.