Is This Actually a Frozen Negroni? Maybe, Maybe Not, I Don’t Know. But It Sure Is Tasty.

Two ways to make a slushified version of the three-ingredient bitter classic.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve looked at a number of frozen/blended cocktails in different styles:

• The Frozen Banana Daiquiri, which blends real banana into the mix.

• The Frozen Jagerita, which takes the frozen Margarita in a bitter, herbal direction with a base of Jägermeister.

• The Penichillin, a frozen rendition of the neo-classic honey-ginger scotch cocktail, the Penicillin, as well as its less complicated antecedent, the Cold Rush, an ice-blended/frozen take on the Gold Rush.

Each of these drinks has a somewhat different flavor profile, but they all have something in common, besides their slushy, summery deliciousness: They’re all adapted from conventional shaken drinks made with some sort of citrus juice and a sweet element to balance the citrus component. 

But the frozen drink corpus contains multitudes — including many popular cocktails of the stirred-and-boozy variety. 

Invariably, these drinks become somewhat less boozy thanks to the addition of a large amount of blended ice. The blended ice, of course, is what gives this style of cocktail its slushy texture. But it also means some adaptations will need to be made. 

So to demonstrate, we’re going to try out two different ways to make a frozen, blended Negroni. The first sticks more closely to the usual all-booze template. The second pushes it in the direction of those shaken drinks, adding juice and sugar syrup for a sweeter, milder, but still delectable warm-weather concoction. 

This, of course, raises a question: Is the second juicy, sugary thing actually a frozen Negroni? Sure, maybe, maybe not, I don’t really know. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? When it’s this hot out, what matters isn’t pondering the imponderables, but whether the drink is good — and this one very much is.

Double the Gin, Double Your Fun

Here is the use-case for a Frozen Negroni: You love Negronis. You love the bitter, balanced, orange-and-spice notes of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari. But it’s also insanely, disgustingly, repulsively hot outside. Walking around is like taking a hike through an open-air sauna, or doing water aerobics in a vat of bubbling donut glaze.  

Quite possibly, you are experiencing summer in Washington, D.C. 

So rather understandably in such a circumstance, you want to whip up an icy, slushy, summer-ready funhouse version of the three-ingredient, equal-parts classic. 

One way to do that is just to take the standard Negroni template, add ice, drop it in a blender, and blend and sip away. 

But even then, you’ll probably want to modify the drink at least a little bit.