On a hot summer day, is there really anything better than an ice-cold slushy? In this case, we’re taking a fun twist on the classic frosé and packing it full of bright, refreshing flavours to bring a special something to any dinner party, girls’ night, or barbeque out there. The perfect combination of mango, mint, and lime to help cool you down and balance out the usual sweetness you get from cheap rose, while making your creation elegant the star of the show.

What is Frosé?

For those who don’t know, frosé or frozé is essentially a slushy cocktail. It’s mostly commonly drank in the summer, and has a reputation of being a very girly, bachelorette type of drink. Truthfully, it’s just another cold summer drink. It’s a great way to turn a bottom-shelf wine into a top-tier party drink. It feels fancy, fun, and extravagant all while being very easy to make.

If you don’t have a rosé in mind for this recipe, we always go for a classic rule: buy the second cheapest you can find. This is because it’s technically working at a competetive price point and is now competing with higher tier bottles instead of competing to just be the cheapest. This usually is a noticeable jump up in quality for almost anything like cleaning products and paper towels, and definitely applies to cheap wine as well.

Aside from price when looking for a good frosé wine, try to look for something as close to 15% as you can find. As it’s explained in the next section, a wine around that 15% point can keep it from freezing solid in the freezer, meaning you can make your drinks far in advance and just leave it in the freezer until you’re ready to whip it out!

Why doesn’t alcohol freeze solid?

Many things are put in the freezer to chill, without anyone worrying that they’ll burst and lead to a long cleaning process. These things generally tend to be vodkas, sakes, and beers. Somehow, these liquids stay in that liquid form despite the freezing cold conditions. This comes from the alcohol content of the drinks, made up primarily of ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, and is the foundation for most alcoholic beverages like wine or hard liquor.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the different hard drinks in this world have different percentages. This content level determines the degree to which your drink will freeze (or not freeze). Generally speaking, ethyl alcohol has a much, much lower freezing point than water to the point that of around -173°F when it’s in its pure form. However, when this ethyl alcohol content is diluted, that freezing point rises. You will essentially never freeze your 90-proof vodka, but you can get pretty close with a 15% bottle of wine.

The chemical structure of the ethanol is to blame for this high freezing point. To freeze from a liquid to a solid is to change the intermolecular structure of a compound. For example, ice is a solid because the bonds between the molecules have become stronger (firmer) with each other than they are in a liquid state. The gaseous state effectively breaks these bonds all together and allows them to change states.

The bonds that are forming and altering the molecular state of the compound are H-bonds, one of the strongest bonds in the chemical world, but easily broken by heat. The most common example of an H-bond in every day life are the curls in curly hair, which straighten when those bonds are broken by the intense heat of a straightening iron.

Hydrogen atoms love attaching themselves to oxygen atoms, but ethanol molecules are primarily comprised of hydrogen and carbon, with only one oxygen atom per molecule. This means that there is only one “connection” point for the hydrogen bonding to occur per molecules, making the bonds weaker through these weak connection points. Because this oxygen atom is also connected to carbon, the polarity (charge) of the oxygen atom decreases. With the polarity being low, it’s hard to attract another molecule. Without enough strong connections, it’s difficult for an intermolecular structure to change from a liquid into a solid state. Just as a magnet will not attach to a quarter, the alcohol molecules have little interest in interaction.

In order to force an interaction, you have to have other molecules present. In this case, that means lower proof alcohol. Beer and wine are two examples of alcoholic beverages that you can actually freeze in your freezer, and the rule of thumb tends to be that anything above 15% will stay closer to a slushy state because part of the mix can freeze while the other part cannot. This makes wine the perfect candidate for a slushy drink, a frosé, because it mixes well without being overpowering, but can also be made far in advance and left temporarily in the freezer without changing states.

Product Suggestions for this Recipe

Our favourite cake molds have been thrifted but we tried to find some of our favourite types of baking equipment at easier-to-access-locations.

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