Last slurp of sunshine: How the hard slushie became the drink of 2020's lost summer

Escape: the Seacontainers' piña colada
David Ellis @dvh_ellis27 August 2020

The entire year has been put on ice, so perhaps it’s no surprise the drink of the summer would be. Time has been frozen and so have the city’s cocktails: this year, it’s been all about chilling out – literally, in fact: 2020’s best bars have been going glacial. But forget your basic frosé, for that last taste the summer than never was, it’s all about the hard slushie.

“Cocktail culture is a funny thing,” says the Cocktail Trading Company’s Elliot Ball, where icy tequila stirred up with rosé and nectarine is proving their hit of the summer (£7 takeaway, £4.50 sampler sat in, thecocktailtradingco.co.uk). “A few years ago, bartenders all wanted to eschew modern fun and hark back to speakeasy times – great drinks, sure, but also potentially obnoxious. Now, especially in London, we’re embracing fun: disco drinks and slushies are perfect examples of fun serves we can execute to a modern standard.

“It challenges us to just let go of our preconceptions… or maybe we just really, really like ice.”

Speakeasies have lost their shine, in other words; now is not the time for secret passwords, it’s about being spontaneous, unwinding and not worrying about what you want. This is the drink to order if your inner child is already plundering the parents liquor cabinet.

“They’re a throwback to funfairs, beaches, good times,” says Pastiao’s co-founder Liam Nelson, “Slushies don’t take themselves too seriously.” At both his restaurants, in Westfield and Soho, the iced cherry and grappa, and the frozen fizz – Prosecco, they’re Italian – are proving the post-lockdown must-order (£5, pastaio.co.uk). “We keep it simple and try to keep away from anything too artificial, otherwise you just end up with a poor ice lolly flavour.”

Throwback fun: Pastaio has long celebrated chilly cocktails 
Natasha Pszenicki

“Slushies are just a bit of a laugh, aren’t they?” says Chris Stock, who helps look after the drinks at the Thameside Sea Containers, “First and foremost, drinking should be about catching up with friends. Slushies are a reminder of those summer holidays away together, when life wasn’t quite so serious.”

At the five star waterside hotel on the Southbank, the Pina Colada slushie is served as part of their Sand In The City experience, where groups of six can hire out on one of the hotel’s patio rooms to themselves, with their own personal Tiki Bar (from £92pp, seacontainerslondon.com). “We blend the rum, coconut and pineapple,” says Stock, “and it’s really important to understand how much alcohol is in there when building the recipe. Too much and the ice crystals won’t form, too little and it’ll be too sugary.”

But Londoners, for once, are not first to the party. Though hard slushies have been around a while – Pastaio has had them quietly on the menu since 2017 – it’s only this year the capital has forgone fancy mixes in favour of cooling off. “Americans have loved a frozen margarita for years,” Nelson says, “and we can’t really think of many cocktails with a fruit puree that you can’t improve by making into a slushie, as long as you add a good hit of a great spirit too.”

Keeping it light is the trick; throwing classic cocktails in an old Slush Puppie machine won’t do it. “Drinks like a Negroni or Manhattans don’t work so well,” says Eder Neto of Double Standard, where the aperol slushie (£10, standardhotels.com) is already Insta-famous, “I’ve seen them made as slushies before, but they’re just too far from the original.”

Not that a lot of the new wave of cocktails – which often include tricks like smoking, fermenting and dehydrating – work much better.

“It may come as a surprise, but nailing a slushie to a high standard is actually pretty challenging,” says CTC’s Ball, “The best drinks are built upon a good understanding of seasoning and flavour, and modern cocktails embrace salt, which is delicious but can present problems here – if it can de-ice the M25, it’s going to interfere with the freezing!”

A little naughty: the frozen yuzu margarita at Bone Daddies

Ice does have its advantages, and cold can help soften any drinks too sugary. The aperol spritz might have been around for a century, but its popularity over the last few years has been up and down at best – just ask the New York Times (“The popular aperitif drinks like a Capri Sun after soccer practice on a hot day. Not in a good way,” went one scathing piece from last summer. It went viral when Nigella Lawson tweeted her agreement).

No doubt, too, that a poorly made spritz is a mess of orangey sweetness, or, worse, all washed out with soda water. Not so at Double Standard, where the ice takes off the edge, leaving a drink that’s refreshing without being cloying, a cocktail that slips down so quietly and quickly that it could quite easily cloud an afternoon in next to no time. And while you’ll happily have the perfect excuse to be throwing them back – it’s a race against time when the sun’s out – melting can mean good things. “The flavour profile changes as you drink,” says Neto. Besides, he adds, “The crystals in the colours make it fascinating to look at.”

No surprise that good looks and being chill is such a winning combo. Elsewhere, Seabird at the Hoxton are taking their frozen caipirinha out on their sun deck (£13, seabirdlondon.com) while Japanese Soul Food specialists Bone Daddies have a frozen margarita that’s been given a twist with yuzu (£9, bonedaddies.com), the curious looking citrus fruit that somehow manages to taste of lime, lemon and grapefruit all at once. So how come all the bars are thinking the same way? Perhaps after a year of everything collapsing, it’s childhood comforts we’re all after. Or maybe it’s just good old-fashioned fun.

“I think it’s down to taking something from our childhood, a classic Slush Puppie, and making it a bit grown up, especially as they were a bit naughty as a kid,” Bone Daddies’ Tanith West grins, “Now they’re even naughtier.”

Stir up your own Aperol Slushie

From the Double Standard bar team

Forget the spritz, this summer it’s time to put your Aperol in a slushie. The citrus from the orange and the lemon juice help soften the sweetness of Italian favourite, and adds a little more zing. Prosecco is the way to go to keep things authentic, but any other fizz should do – the most important thing is to ensure you stir the mixture regularly, and don’t add too much of your bubbly at once; forming ice crystals takes a little love. At Double Standard, a slushie machine stirs constantly – you’ll struggle to get exactly the same results at home – but this will get you most of the way there. Give it a shot and then head over to King’s Cross to compare it to the real thing.

Serves: 6-7

Ingredients

  • 300ml Aperol
  • 300ml fresh orange juice, from about 2 to 3 oranges
  • 75ml fresh lemon juice, from 1 to 2 lemons
  • 1 bottle Prosecco. Pour half into one container and leave the rest in the bottle.
  • 1 orange, sliced, for garnish

Method

  • Mix the Aperol, orange juice, lemon juice, and half a bottle of Prosecco in a large bowl.
  • Place in a shallow container in the freezer and stir mixture every 30 minutes until the mixture gets that slushy shaved ice texture, which should take around two hours. After the first hour, add the other half bottle of Prosecco to the mixture.
  • Remove from the freezer after another hour, stir well and garnish with orange slices to serve.

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