Wine Coolers: What’s so great about flavored malt liquor anyway?
Itching to try the latest flavor rage in coolers? It came to my attention recently that many people don’t know that coolers are simply flavored malt liquor. It surprises me even more that that info itself doesn’t seem to mean much to many people. What’s wrong with pina colada flavored malt liquor coolers? Well, nothing, unless you want to drink more than one or two. If you’re anything like me, more than one or two coolers will leave you with hangover symptoms later on that day or the next.
If you really want a strawberry daiquiri or pina colada, why not just buy the fixings to make those mixed drinks? Of course if you’re on a budget it’s probably better to just buy the coolers. But if you’re planning a big party or otherwise have a bigger drink budget, I strongly suggest making your own mixed drinks rather than buy a huge lot of coolers. Malt liquor is notorious for producing headaches and all the other hangover symptoms.
Mixed drinks don’t have to be all that expensive to make either. If you plan ahead a little you can decide on a few different mixed drinks to have on hand at your next party and save some money by using the same base liquor. For example, rum is a great liquor for fruity drinks. Pina coladas, daiquiris and many other drinks call for rum, so that’s a great standby as far as liquors for mixing go. And of course vodka is a good all round liquor that can make many types of less fruity drinks. So, a trip to the liquor store to purchase a bottle of vodka and a bottle of rum will yield all kinds of mixed drink options.
There are some excellent bartender and drink mixing websites out there that can help you make the most of your next mixed drinks occasion. There are even websites where you can input all the ingredients you have on hand and it will spit out a list of drinks that you can make. Webtender.com is just such a site. Go to http://www.webtender.com/cgi-bin/imbselect to input your available ingredients. Chances are you’ll be surprised to discover all the possible drink combinations using only the ingredients you have on hand.
