Warming Up Your Winter Menu The Chill Way

Winter Frozen Drinks
Noteworthy frozen cocktails include (L-R): Bar Marilou’s Dusk Til Dawn (Photo: Randy P. Schmidt); Alto Frozen cocktail (Photo: Rush Jagoe); The Bungalow Mystery from Bar Marilou at the ACE Hotel in New Orleans; and Porchlight’s Frozen Negroni (Photo: Michelle Giang)
  • RAK Porcelain
  • RATIONAL USA
  • McKee Foodservice
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • Day & Nite
  • Atosa USA
  • Texas Pete
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • Imperial Dade
  • DAVO Sales Tax
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As I write this the entire country it seems is under a winter weather advisory, and the KWWL sports anchor in Waterloo, Iowa is going viral for his hilariously cranky take on the temporary assignment he had to take on reporting on the snowstorm. So, what better time than now to try and convince you that putting frozen drinks on your menu year-round leads to a more profitable business!

It’s true. As the temperatures drop outside, a menu with one or more similarly low temperature drinks provides a great guest experience and expedites ticket times. Matt Friedlander, owner of casual cocktail bar Sally Can Wait, notes, “Aside from being a large part of our identity, they’re just really delicious. The same way I would never begrudge anyone for ordering braised short ribs in the middle of summer if that’s what they were in the mood for, I’d always want to be able to offer a frozen drink to a guest. And I think there’s something transportive about taking a sip of a frozen tropical drink in the dead of winter.  It has the ability to take you to another place for a moment, perhaps one that isn’t so cold.”

There’s no denying the cold on days like today – or any windy day in Manhattan between September and March one might be skeptical about how well a frozen drink will sell, but that cold winter blowing off the nearby Hudson River doesn’t stop Porchlight from offering frozen cocktails all year long. Head Bartender Benjamin Brown acknowledges that his guests may not have come there seeking a frozen cocktail, but they surely are enjoying them.  And that’s why the frozen drink has become pretty canon Porchlight according to Brown.  He says, “The windy west side of Manhattan is no joke in the winter months, so our guests likely aren’t heading over to Porchlight with a frozen cocktail in mind.  Once they’ve warmed up and gotten settled with their first drink, the frozen cocktail is an easy second.

The bar has been open long enough to play this out and see it work as Brown explains, “Frozen drinks became a staple on the Porchlight menu because they exemplify our ethos of taking what we do seriously, but not taking ourselves too seriously. The ability to craft a thoughtful frozen cocktail that is balanced and has the right texture requires more on the R&D end than one might assume, but the guest experience gets to be playful and exciting.”

He continues, “We love the guest interaction in serving a frozen cocktail because it feels like a treat, or something that they “wouldn’t normally order,” and are pleasantly surprised by the complexity of flavor in something that for long had carried a certain stigma of being too syrupy or cloying. As we and others discovered ways to make them balanced it became a playful way to present something new yet familiar to our guests. Similar in concept to our carbonated Long Island, Seven & 7, and Whiskey Cola, the frozen drink is reimagined into something delightful AND fun! The decision to keep them on the menu year-round came from a random “ah-ha!” moment last summer when our Beverage Director, Nick Bennett, was dreaming about the colder months and holiday cocktails and thought “what about a frozen grasshopper!?” And as we like to say at USHG, “who wrote the rule” that frozen cocktails are only for the summer months? Fast forward to today where we feature a Frozen Candy Cane Negroni and our new holiday staple, the Frozen Grasshopper.

  • Day & Nite
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • RAK Porcelain
  • DAVO Sales Tax
  • Atosa USA
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • RATIONAL USA
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • Texas Pete
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • McKee Foodservice
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • Imperial Dade

Bringing back retro drinks in new ways, like the Frozen Grasshopper, is one way to delight guests.  But don’t forget your staff.  You can both apply the same whimsy and joy to frozen cocktail R&D that you do to other drinks and consider your staff’s steps of labor when making your plans. While it’s always time for a frozen drink in New Orleans the weather changes dictate menu changes that enable Ryan Wilkins’ offerings at Bar Marilou in the Ace Hotel to be big sellers. Wilkins notes, “One of the best arguments for having a frozen cocktail on the menu year-round when you’re a craft cocktail bar and labor intensive is that that frozen drink takes pressure off your bartenders.  That drink is a quick out.  Here at Bar Marilou the servers execute and garnish the frozen drinks, so the ticket never even hits the bar.  In a craft cocktail bar, it’s great for speed of service.”

Wilkins also points out how a frozen drink can be as much as a conversation piece as any stirred drink as he shares, “I love taking frozen drinks outside of people’s expectation.  For winter menus we’ll go for something with more richness or dessert-iness.  On a 100-degree day you want that frozen daiquiri that Manolito does, but in winter I love to do frozen drinks with fat content using milk or coconut milks that gets you that texture.  The Bungalow Mystery is one we’re running this winter from head bartender Lindsay; it uses mango lassi as a point of reference.  It’s mango puree, Coco Lopez and coconut milk; the Coco Lopez gives it a delicious toastiness and sugar, and the actual coconut milk puts it over the top with texture.  And then we infused funky Smith & Cross rum with lime leaf and top it with Hella’s smoked chili bitters.”

Bitter cold outside doesn’t chill sales inside when it comes to frozen drinks.  On a typical Bar Marilou menu that’s no more than 14 choices long Wilkins notes that The Bungalow Mystery is coming in fourth or fifth every night.  Back in New York, Brown shares that cold weather frozen drink orders remain strong in the top half of item sales.  So, if you can embrace Wilkins’ theory that there’s never weather where frozen drinks don’t make sense, you may find that, as he and Brown quickly discovered, frozen cocktails are sure to bring in cold hard cash every night.

SIPS TO SAVOR

Balancing out our chilling advice that frozen beverages belong on your menu year-round, this month’s sidebar features a brand-new product that’s bound to warm up your drinks …introducing Uncle Waithley’s Vincy Brew, a non-alcoholic small batch ginger beer.  Uncle Waithley’s is the brainchild of hospitality entrepreneur, and St. Vincent native, Karl Franz Williams.  Created in Harlem, and in honor of Uncle Waithley, Williams’ centenarian grandfather who was a ginger farmer on the island of St. Vincent and a beloved community figure, Williams’ Vincy Brew features Scotch Bonnet, a pepper prized throughout the Caribbean and Africa, for its heat and flavor.

That heat and flavor comes through in the freshest of ways as Williams committed to producing a product made only of natural ingredients, no extracts.  The ginger beer is aged using a vintage fermentation process for richness and maturation before being balanced with fresh-squeezed lime juice, turmeric, and mineral water infused with natural salts.” 

  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • RAK Porcelain
  • McKee Foodservice
  • RATIONAL USA
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • Texas Pete
  • Atosa USA
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • Imperial Dade
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • Day & Nite
  • DAVO Sales Tax
Francine Cohen
Francine Cohen is an award-winning journalist covering the business of the f&b/hospitality industry, and a proud native Washingtonian (DC). In addition to her work as a journalist she keeps busy fundraising for Citymeals on Wheels, Les Dames d’Escoffier, NY Women’s Culinary Alliance, and the USBG Foundation and serves as chief storyteller and brand steward for clients in the food and beverage sector by providing them with strategic marketing and business growth guidance. She has never met a cheese or beverage she does not like, and lives with her husband in New York; leaving him behind to visit New Orleans every summer. (Except 2020. Darn pandemic.) You can reach her at francinecohen@mindspring.com