We have good news and bad news. The bad news is that summer is almost over. Each year, it feels like someone is playing tricks with the calendar. January, February, and March seem to drag on forever and leave us all in the dark, and then when the warmer months arrive they shoot past in what feels like the blink of an eye. It feels like just yesterday that we opened up our summer wardrobe and said goodbye to our coats, but any moment now people are going to start asking us what our plans are for Christmas. There’s a scientific explanation for why time doesn’t always seem to pass at the same speed, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.

The good news is that there’s still a little bit of summer left to enjoy. That gives you one last chance to do all the things you never got round to, including throwing a summer garden party, or even taking a day or two to enjoy the heat in your yard or on your balcony without worrying about work, or day to day trivialities. What better way to do that than with a cocktail in your hand?

Serving up the perfect cocktail could make you the envy of your friends – and the perfect party host- but not all of us feel like we have the skills. Cocktail making is easy to get wrong, and when it goes wrong, you’re left with wasted alcohol, and a liquid so foul you wouldn’t even unblock the drain with it. Usually, that’s because we don’t know what we’re doing with the ingredients. We shouldn’t treat the ingredients of a cocktail like we treat the symbols on the reels of a mobile slots game, allowing chance to decide whether we succeed or fail. Nor should we ever take mobile slots-style gambles with what we put in our drinks! The only place it’s acceptable to mix cocktail making and online slots is in the Cocktail Cash slots game on some online casinos and their sister sites, where you at least stand a chance of being happy with the end result when everything stops spinning. Seeing everything spin from a bad cocktail is just a recipe for disaster.

Speaking of recipes, we’ve got four can’t-miss cocktail recipes that everyone should feel comfortable serving from home. This way, you can avoid ending up on one of the internet’s many ‘worst cocktails of all time‘ lists!

Tequila Sunrise

Let’s start off with a classic. After all, nothing says ‘summer’ like a tequila sunrise! We accept that some of you can’t abide the taste of tequila – so if that’s you, just scroll straight on to our next option. If you like a little Mexican flair in your drink, though, read on!

Making a tequila sunrise couldn’t be easier. All you might need is a bottle of Orangina (learn more about Orangina here), a 50ml shot of tequila, some ice, half a lemon, a tablespoon of triple sec, and two teaspoons of grenadine. If you want to add a little visual flair, add a cocktail cherry for effect. Take a tall glass, pour in grenadine, and put that aside for a moment. Put the tequila, the ice, triple sec, and the orange juice into a cocktail shaker, and keep shaking until you can feel that the outer surface of your cocktail shaker has turned cold. Put some

When that’s done, put some ice into the glass with the grenadine in it, strain in your cocktail mix, and then pop your cherry on top. It’s ready to serve!

Pineapple & Mango Mojito

When it comes to summer fruits, you can’t do much better than pineapples and mangoes. Good luck trying to grow them in cold weather! A pineapple and mango mojito is summer in a glass, and it couldn’t be easier to make. You don’t even need a cocktail shaker for this – it’s all about the ingredients. Those ingredients are fifty grams of pineapple pieces, fifty grams of chopped mangoes, three chopped limes, two mint springs with the leaves picked off, two tablespoons of soft brown sugar, 200mls of pineapple rum, 150lms of white rum, some ice, and 600mls of sparkling water.

Assembling all of those ingredients was the hard part. This is the easy part! All you need to do is take everything apart from the ice, the white rum, pineapple rum, and the water, and muddle it together. When that’s done, throw in the mint leaves, top it with ice, and then mix in your two varieties of rum and water, stirring the whole time. You should get enough out of this to serve six people.

Strawberry Gin

Gin is sometimes called ‘mother’s ruin,’ but it can be the making of your summer if you get this recipe right! This is the easiest cocktail recipe you’ll learn today. It’s really just gin, strawberries, and enough sugar to sweeten up the taste of gin, so it doesn’t sour your strawberries. There’s a big disclaimer here though: You can’t just make this on the morning of a party, and expect it to be ready by the afternoon. You need to clear some space in your refrigerator for this cocktail to mature. It’s going to be in there for some time.

To make yourself around one and a half liters of strawberry gin, you’ll need a good-quality bottle of gin (700ml will do), 400g of sliced strawberries, and 100g of caster sugar. Mix it all together in a large bowl, pour it into a bottle or jar when it’s done, and then put it in the fridge. Make sure you stir it every couple of days, and don’t even think about taking it out for two weeks. Any time after two weeks, it’s ready to serve. Strain it into glasses, and serve it in the garden!

Sea Breeze

Just because a cocktail might have an exotic name, it doesn’t mean it’s difficult to make. ‘Sea breeze’ conjures up images of a relaxing beach vacation, but doesn’t tell you much about what to expect from it as a drink. That means you can tell all your friends it’s a sophisticated and complex cocktail, when it’s actually just a basic vodka-based recipe!

All you need to get a summer breeze going at your party is 50mls of vodka, 50mls of grapefruit juice, 100mls of cranberry juice, a slice of lime, and some ice. Take a tall glass, fill it to the halfway mark with ice, pour everything else in, and you’re done. The slice of lime is just for decoration and texture, so you can either leave it on top or wedge it on the side of the glass.

Enjoy!

Anna Jones
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