Red, White, and Blue Patriotic Frozen Drinks

When we were invited to a 4th of July party, I asked what we could bring. Suzzi requested a red, white, and blue drink. Last year, she made one using colored beverages with different densities and it was a hit. I wanted to try something different. Rather than relying on density, what if I froze the layers? One problem: we'd need to transport frozen drinks for an hour in the summer heat. If they melted, I'd be showing up at a 4th of July party with a light purple drink instead of a red, white, and blue one. 

I'm happy to report that my drinks arrived frozen and were indeed red, white, and blue. Unfortunately, there was a different problem I hadn't anticipated. Read on to find out what I did, versus what you should do if you want to make this drink in the future. Affiliate links below.

Red, White, and Blue Patriotic Frozen Drinks

Materials: 

• clear plastic cups
• Kool-Aid (Cherry and Blue Raspberry Lemonade)
• granulated sugar
• Simply Limeade
• plastic slushy straws

What I Did: 

First, I prepared the blue raspberry lemonade Kool-Aid according to the package directions. I cleared space in our freezer, then set the cups into bread pans that would keep them upright while freezing. I filled each cup 1/3 of the way full with the Kool-Aid and put the pans in the freezer. 

When the Kool-Aid was slushy, I added cute patriotic paper straws. This was a big mistake, so don't do that. I let the blue layer freeze completely, then added the white (Limeade) layer and let that freeze completely. 

I made the Cherry Kool-Aid and packed it into a Thermos. We put the bread pans into a cooler and crossed our fingers that the layers would stay frozen during the drive. When we got to the party, I set out the drinks and added the final layer, which remained liquid. They looked so pretty!

It should have been obvious, but freezing paper straws in a drink is a bad idea. You couldn't sip through them since they were frozen in a block of flavored ice. As the drinks thawed, they began to disintegrate. Most of us ended up using a fork to free the straw and then drank the resulting slushie. The good news is that the three flavors go together really well!

What I Would Do Next Time: 

First, I would buy slushie straws instead of paper straws. That's what I put in the materials list at the top of the post. I would not freeze the straws into the drink. In fact, I would not freeze the drinks like this at all. Instead, I would use my beloved Cuisinart ice cream maker to make a slushie of each color and store those in the freezer until it was time to serve them. I'd pack in the blue and tamp it down, pack white on that, and top with red, and THEN add the straws. I don't know how well slushies would travel, but I think this would work well at home. If you give it a try before I do, let me know how it goes!