slushy paper plane – smitten kitchen

A few years ago, Alex and I started batching cocktails and keeping them in the freezer. Batching may sound fancy and professional but at most we were participating in rudimentary math (“one ounce? nah, one cup!”) and advanced laziness (ahem, preparedness). Having cocktails ready to go and super, super cold so that they won’t immediately water themselves down by melting ice was a win. And, as the habit has continued, it’s always fun when a friend stops by and you remember you already have perfect manhattans ready to go, as if you were trying to medal in the impromptu hosting olympics.

Most freezer-batched cocktails are straightforward: lukewarm going in, chilled coming out. But earlier this year we made paper planes, poured them into a jar in the freezer for later, got too tired to enjoy them (adulthood!) and came back two days later to remember that (science lesson incoming, cover your ears!) that lower-proof cocktails actually, uh, freeze when frozen. Alcohol, as we probably learned a long time ago, has a lower freezing point than water, which is why vodka kept in your freezer (aka you’re my Russian in-laws) is pourable but paper planes, which contain both lemon juice and lower-proof Aperol along with higher-proof amaro and bourbon — turn out to get suspended in a perfect half-frozen state we call slush.

But I honestly feel like “slush” undersells them. Here is a thing I’ve learned trying to write frozen cocktail recipes over the years: It’s tricky to get the texture just right in a blender. Too much liquid, or liquid that’s not arctic to begin with, everything liquefies. Not enough liquid, nothing blends. Ice that’s too chunky never homogenizes; ice that’s too small melts. Yet these slushy paper planes are the texture I wish/dream all blender cocktails were, with no blender required: thick but pourable with the most delightful crunches of thin ice flakes everywhere. It’s gorgeous (thank you, Aperol, for the orange glow), balanced (the bourbon smooths it, the amaro harmonizes it, the lemon sharpens it), and feels like a popsicle in a glass and you did nothing, nothing but pouring ingredients into a jar and forgetting about them for a day to make it happen. We’re going to win at summer this year, and it starts with this.