The fashion police might sniff if you wear white before Memorial Day, but no one will wrinkle their nose if you serve a wine cooler before Spring gives way to Summer. Light, refreshing, delightfully bubbly and with a lower alcohol content than traditional wine, what’s not to love?
While there are plenty of name brand wine coolers on the market, this sweet summertime beverage is so easy to concoct, there’s no reason to not whip one up to meet your own particular taste preferences. There are no hard and fast rules about what exactly constitutes a wine cooler, so you have plenty of leeway to let your imagination run wild.
Here are the basic ingredients, but as Captain Barbossa so famously quipped in Pirates of the Caribbean, “They’re more like…guidelines.”
Wine (Any variety will do; red, white, rose. And when it comes to wine coolers, cheap is just fine!)
Liqueur (Fruit infused is best for bringing out the flavor of the wine. Peach schnapps, crème de cassis, triple sec and limoncello are fun choices.)
Carbonation (You could just use soda water, but com’on! 7-Up, ginger ale, raspberry-flavored sparkling water…the choices are endless!)
Use a 4:4:2 ratio for the perfect balance.