Give Costco's Ready-To-Serve Cocktails A Summer Makeover: Here's How

Summertime's long, warm days are all about gathering friends for fun, food, and drinks. It is the peak season for burgers on the backyard charcoal grill and all manner of frosty, frozen drinks. It is not the time to start piling on work by way of complicated recipes with instructions that seem designed only to require tons of clean up. So any shortcut that gets you more time with your pals and less time negotiating ingredients is as crucial as your SPF. And Costco's own ready-to-drink cocktails are an excellent timesaver for the home mixologist looking to enjoy a frozen boozy beverage.

Like a lot of its products, availability varies based on your location. But when you can get your hands on something like Kirkland Signature Golden Margarita, you can have a sunny day drinking classic: a frozen margarita. The same premise goes for Costco's pre-mixed mimosas and hard seltzers among the retailer's overall alcohol options. Get them as chilled as you can, combine with a bit of ice in most cases or pour them into a Ninja Slushi, and turn them into your very own drink of summer — all sourced from one trip at the same place you buy your sunscreen and party snacks.

You've likely learned liquor will or will not freeze based on alcohol by volume, or ABV. A high ABV liquor, like vodka, doesn't solidify in household freezers because it is high in ethanol. Now, something like the Kirkland Signature margarita, with its much lower ABV, doesn't solidify, either, but portioned into ice cube trays, it begins turning into more of a slush. The consistency probably won't be anything like the machine-made stuff you might be used to, but blended with a few regular ice cubes, it can get pretty close. And freezing it as much as you can lets you use less ice, which can dilute the whole mix.

The Kirkland Signature mimosa's even lower ABV can get it closer to solid in the freezer, but you still probably wouldn't want to skate on a pond of it. You just may need less regular ice to achieve your desired texture. It's also important to portion mimosa into something like ice cube trays since a mimosa's carbonation can cause it to expand more in the bottle, leading to a dreaded explosion. Hard seltzer will perform similarly, and those cans may pop as well, so always remove them to a separate container before freezing and blending.

Of course, if you have a Ninja Slushi or similar appliance, you can always pour your ready-to-drink cocktails directly into the machine and let it do the work for you. Fans of both the appliance and Costco report that this approach works great for the Kirkland Signature mimosa and sangria. As a bonus, the wholesale club even sells the Ninja Slushi, and often at a steep discount; at the time of writing, it's only $230, over $100 cheaper than retail price.