A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling particularly indulgent, so I made some cocktails with vanilla ice cream. Yes, it’s so sinful. It’s like putting heavy cream into a drink, except somehow I feel better about putting ice cream into a drink than pouring in heavy cream. I’m not sure why.
All of these drinks involve putting the ingredients into a blender, to get the ice cream and alcohol mixed properly.
First, I tried a variation on the Lychee Alexander from Asian Cocktails that I made before.
Lychee Alexander #2
1.5 oz brandy
2 lychees
0.25 oz lychee syrup
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
lychee
The brandy, two lychees, lychee syrup, and vanilla ice cream are blended together, with the last lychee as a garnish. This second version of the Lychee Alexander has ice cream, and it has less liquor than the first one. It still has quite a bit of alcohol in it. But the creaminess of the ice cream definitely helps this one be a lot more palatable than the brandy-with-milk version. It’s like an alcoholic milkshake with a hint of lychee. If I were making it for a party, though, I’d probably put in less brandy. And maybe some more lychee syrup and lychees, to make the lychee flavor even stronger. But I did enjoy this drink.
Then, I made the drink version of the famous dessert, Bananas Foster:
Bananas Foster
1.5 oz spiced rum
0.5 oz banana liqueur
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
1 banana
cinnamon
The spiced rum, banana liqueur, vanilla ice cream, and banana are blended together, and then the cinnamon is sprinkled on top of the drink. The drink version swaps out the dark rum from the dessert for spiced rum. The banana and ice cream made this drink nice and creamy. I could definitely taste the alcohol, but I think the banana flavor went really well with it, so it didn’t taste overly alcoholic. I probably should’ve added more cinnamon, since I could hardly taste it. But I really liked this drink overall; it was a cold, sweet, creamy drink with a nice banana flavor.
Finally, I made an ice cream version of a mudslide, which is vodka, Kahlua, and Bailey’s. It’s basically the original, plus some ice cream.
Frozen Mudslide
1 oz vodka
1 oz Kahlua
1 oz Bailey’s Irish Cream
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
This drink was nice and sweet, without being overpoweringly sugary or alcoholic, at least for me. But I do like my drinks on the sweet side. The coffee flavor goes together really nicely with the vanilla ice cream, although the Bailey’s made this feel super-creamy, more so than the last two drinks. It did make me feel a bit guilty, putting cream into a drink with ice cream.
I used no less than six scoops of ice cream for these cocktails. Ice cream is supposed to be really bad for you, at least according to those nutritionists. But it’s OK to indulge once in a while, right?