The 2-Layered Frozen Drink You Need For Cooling Off This Summer

To accompany a slew of refreshing summer salad recipes and your favorite BBQ grilled goodies, the perfect frozen drink is one teeming with style and taste. Tossing a handful of basic ingredients into a blender, you can create a dual-layered cocktail that's bursting with tropical flavor and can be customized to fit all taste preferences. The frozen lava flow cocktail, created by Tasting Table recipe developer Tanika Douglas, is a sippably fruity and photo-worthy beverage that's sure to be the hit of any summertime gathering.

Starting with the general taste profile, this drink is, ostensibly, a mix between a banana colada and a strawberry daiquiri. The four main fruit ingredients are bananas, coconuts, pineapples, and strawberries to which you'll be adding a generous helping of light rum. Some variations recommend a coconut rum like Malibu, but it's entirely your choice. Using frozen fruits in your base will give the drink a slightly thicker, smoothie-like texture and keep everything nice and cool. Almost as much fun as drinking it is the part where you pour each layer into a tall glass, creating the lava-like visual.

Making a lava flow is pretty simple and relatively customizable. Starting with frozen fruit is recommended for the optimal consistency, but you can choose to use fresh and add more crushed ice if you prefer. If you're not a fan of strawberries, you can use raspberries or cherries to keep the red coloring while changing up the flavor. For different colors of your "lava" layer, you can also try subbing in mangoes or blueberries if you wish. A version with strawberries and blueberries would also be appropriate for any July 4th celebrations.

You can also give your lava flow the mocktail treatment and swap out the rum for more fruit juice, creating a nonalcoholic version of the party beverage. It will look just as aesthetically pleasing while also remaining zero-proof. Any way you mix your beverage, remember to go with the flow and keep things chill — good advice for frozen summer cocktails and any time of the year.