Enhance Your Frozen Cocktail With A Splash Of Coffee Creamer

Whether you're on a beach or in your backyard, frozen cocktails are the ultimate way to keep cool and unwind on a warm day. Unfortunately, far too often, boozy blended beverages miss the mark. Rather than settle for frosty tipples that lack pizzazz, why not wake up flavor with a drizzle of coffee creamer? Capable of adding gustatory and textural dimension to frozen cocktails, the ingredient is for more than jazzing up a cup of joe. 

As its name implies, coffee creamer is, well, creamy. It's precisely this richness that can prevent frozen cocktails from taking on a gritty and grainy texture, and instead give them a velvety and luscious consistency. Beyond contributing decadence, coffee creamer does a wonderful job at boosting flavors when worked into a blended drink. Not only can its sweetness accentuate (or balance) flavor profiles, but flavored options can impart nuanced depth.

Naturally, there is a proper way to go about introducing the ingredient into your favorite tipples. Refrain from stirring coffee creamer into an already blended cocktail. A better method is to add the silky and milky addition into a blender with other ingredients and then blitz everything together until smooth. Alternatively, you could layer coffee creamer in between a cocktail for aesthetics. Just be mindful that while amounts may vary based on the quantity of the batch, less is more when using coffee creamer. All you need is a splash — no more than an ounce per drink.

Most coffee creamers, including plant-based options, can elevate cocktails. That said, full-fat dairy creamers tend to yield better textural results. In any case, there's no limit as to which flavors (or combination of flavors!) can be used, from simple options like vanilla, caramel, or hazelnut to more complex creamers like pumpkin spice, white chocolate raspberry, or toasted marshmallow. The key is to remember how flavor profiles will interact with each other.

As you might expect, working coffee creamer into a coffee-based cocktail is a fabulous idea. Richness can easily be imparted to frozen espresso martinis with a touch of sweet cream, much like a dash of butter pecan coffee creamer can give blended Irish coffee an edge. Additionally, any cocktails with a dairy base — think: frozen Nutella Mudslides, blended milk punches, or blitzed Grasshoppers — can be improved with coffee creamer if the recipe's required dairy is traded for a flavored creamer like mocha, gingerbread, or peppermint.

Aside from coffee and cream-forward cocktails, fresh and fruity frozen drinks also meet their match with creamer. For instance, coconut creamer could revamp a blended Blue Hawaiian or Piña Colada, whereas a Dirty Banana could be heightened with peanut butter cup-flavored creamer. Even a citrusy Sgroppino can sing with an orange creamsicle-flavored creamer.

At the end of the day, the options are endless. Which coffee creamer and cocktail will you combine, first?