There are plenty of articles on how to use leftover beer/wine to polish furniture or your hair, make a gnat trap, bee trap or slug trap, cook it into bread, stews and pasta. But what these all lack is way to retain the key element of alcohol, alcohol. F that S. Here’s how you should really finish off that bit of the undrinkable or unfinishable, without missing out on booze’s intrinsic benefit, with methods that vary from making popsicles to the using the under-appreciated taste qualities of Kool-Aid.
1. Beersicle– So, one time I brushed my teeth only to realize I still had half a beer left. I had to think quickly to find a non-mintybeer solution and prevent waste. Answer? Use pop molds to make a beersicle and done, breakfast is being made while you sleep. Play around with adding some citrus or OJ. Beware that it doesn’t stay frozen long due to science, so have a bowl handy to catch it. Also, next time you have a party and are annoyed at all the soldiers down, make backwashicles. Yum.
2. Supermarket/Super cheap wine – If you’ve ever bought a bottle of wine from a grocery store (outside of New York, at least) you know the alcohol runs at a 4 percent rate which is like, what we drank when we were 10. Don’t kick yourself over your amateur move … add some whiskey to it! You can always tell people it was aged in whiskey barrels.
4. Wine lushies – Take leftover mediocre wine and freeze it. One way to do this is by pouring it into a tupperware container. I suggest adding splenda to it or perhaps some simple syrup, but that’s just me and my 5-year-old’s palate. You can also add mashed up fruit, syrup or vanilla extract. This result has many uses. You can eat it straight as a yummy wine slushie or you can use the wine chips over sorbet or fruit. Basically you can do anything as long as it ends up in your mouth.
5. Mulled turning wine – Wine that is starting to turn could be used to cook, or you could make mulled wine. Warm it with lots of cloves, sugar and cinnamon etc. IMPORTANT: You must add some brandy at the end or else you will end up the host of a non-alcoholic mulled wine party.
6. Wine cubes – This is child’s play, but freeze leftover wine in an ice cube tray to chill future wine without watering it down – obvs this means you would combine different types of wine, but so what?
7. Crapodka – Ever think you don’t care about the quality of vodka and then come home to realize you’re not 19 anymore? Some people say you can run it through a Brita filter, but I don’t like that idea, and who has that many Brita filters lying around? You, Daddy Warbucks? Infuse it. Throw a piece of horseradish in it, or some fruit. Horseradish takes all of like an hour to become potent whereas fruit takes a few nights. The horseradish vodka is especially good on the rocks with olive juice. Another classy way to improve crapodka is by mixing it with KoolAid. Trust me. You will taste nothing. Or Jell-o shot that shit.
8. Miscalculated Pops – Overzealous in your cocktail preparation? Plan for your party based on the high amount of Facebook responses? This goes back to the beerscicle idea but works a bit better. Take your leftover mix or juices and make one large batch with your alcohol of choice and pour it into the molds. It freezes well and taste delicious (most likely. Depends on if you make a good cocktail). I guess as good as margarita pops sound, it is almost winter, I’m going to have to come up with some alcoholic soup. Oh! Bloody Mary Gazpacho – ie bloody mary in a bowl, which brings me to number 9…
9. Hail Marys – Bloody Marys are my version of a Long Island ice tea. I learned from a master bartender roommate that you should always keep a large container of homemade Bloody Mary mix in the fridge. You can put almost any leftover booze into this to make a cocktail the next day. Vodka, tequila, beer, sake, scotch, gin and sherry, not sure about rum. You can also use this to revert to #8.
10. Fun with 40s – There was a time in my life when Edward 40hands made sense. Two huge O.E.s? No prob. Turns out they kinda taste like shit, and worse, about half way through you begin realizing you’re drinking one of the grossest beverages out there: warm malt liquor. There are things that can be done. There’s obviously the brass monkey, where you add OJ to the beer for a 40 beermosa, or, as I did at my party, a SunnyD Solosa. If you can make it a third of the way through, you can add one of the following: gingerale, lemonade, Red Bull (think of the dearly departed Four Loko predecessor, Sparks) or, for the coup de gras, combine numbers 7, 9 and 10.
How have you reused booze? Tell us in the comments!
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I have a number you can call if you feel like you need to talk to a counselor.
Ha, actually I AM the counselor. Please don’t cry for me too much, I just happened to have gone through college so I know some tricks and how to sleep on a franzia pillow. But thanks!
Is that a pillow made of a bag of Franzia, or a metaphorical pillow of consuming too much/the right amount of Franzia?
You totally forgot the finest contribution to world cuisine since the Columbian Exchange - the Kalimotxo (Cali-mo-cho). Equal parts cheap red wine and cola over ice.
You'll thank me later.
I just wanna know can you reuse a mix drink with oj, rum, and vodka after its been in the freezer 4 days?!