Recently I moved (again) and during the move I found a cheap little snow cone maker that I had bought a couple years ago. My son was especially excited and and we filled the ice molds in hopes of a fun snack to cool off in the desert heat. And doing fun things like this is a treat in itself. I have never been happy with the pre-made syrups for snow cones (big surprise) so my son and I set out on an adventure of creating our own syrups . We started brainstorming what flavors we wanted (I do miss the days when I’d ask him what flavor he wanted and he would say “BLUE!”).
We started playing with the different ideas and started making syrups and as we did this, my bartender mind set in and I began to wonder how I could spike these summer treats up to add to the grown up fun. But we will get to that in a second. The easiest way to make your own snow cone syrup is to take any fruit juice, drink mix etc and make a 1:1 simple syrup. But why stop there? Why be 1 dimensional? The first big idea we came up with was Pina Colada. We took 2 oz of pineapple juice and combined it with 4 oz coconut water then added 6 oz of sugar and voila!! Pina Colada Snow Cone. Its pretty easy to do just adjust the sugar level to your liking but 1:1 seems to keep the kids happy. Personally these syrups are a little too sweet for my taste but I wasn’t making this for me and honestly he loved it.
Pina Colada “grown up” style was pretty easy as well as was Daiquiri. But I wanted something a little more daring. Being Tennessee born there is one drink that always refreshes the Southern side of me……I decided to make a Mint Julep Snow Cone. Here’s what you do….
Mint Julep Snow Cone Syrup
4 oz Bourbon
2 oz Sugar
12-15 mint leaves
In a small sauce pot over medium heat bring this mixture (sans the mint) to a boil. Be careful because it is easy to ignite the bourbon and burn your eyebrows off. Once boiling reduce heat and stir in the mint leaves. Stir briefly, remove from heat and let steep until room temp (couple hours). Strain off the mint and refrigerate. Tasty
Then I wondered if I could make something equally classic but not really a summer cool-down kinda drink. MANHATTAN!!!!! This came out fantastic and was a great summer cool down
4 oz Rye
2 oz Sweet Vermouth
4 dashes bitters
3 oz Sugar.
The procedure is the same as above.
So have fun in the sun this summer with your own Spike Up Snow Cones
SOURCE: The Santa Fe Barman – Read entire story here.