Frozen Lemon Daiquiris

Beat the heat this summer with Frozen Lemon Daiquiris reminiscent of the New Orleans classic cocktail. Sweet and tart, this citrus and rum cocktail is like a fresh frozen lemonade. 

Today I bring you one of my favorite cocktails of the year, the Frozen Lemon Daiquiri.

I have long been a daiquiri fan, and it started young. Okay, that sounds bad/weird. Let me explain.

My love for daiquiris has come a long way. Kind of like loving a band since through their worst album, sticking with them while they got even better.

When I was in middle school, my friend invited me to her bat mitzvah. Her parents had rented a machine that made booze-less frozen strawberry daiquiris for us.

What a novelty! I’d never heard of daiquiris, let alone mocktails, before. I’m sure these ones were riddled with fake strawberry flavor, red food color and way too much sugar, but, boy, were they delicious.

After my 21st birthday, there were more of those too-sweet, too-colorful daiquiris, this time with alcohol.

A trip to New Orleans post-college with friends revealed to-go-cups overflowing with those atrocities, but my friends and I drank them joyfully.

What is a daiquiri?

The daiquiri is more than just a cocktail. It’s actually a family of cocktails featuring rum, citrus juice and sugar. It’s what we call a “sour” cocktail, and there are many variations depending on the type of citrus.

A few years ago, Chris and I took a trip to Richmond for a food festival. We were super lucky to get to take a few classes from cocktail wizard David Wondrich, who taught us all about making daiquiris.

One of the classes we took was an entire class on the Hemingway Daiquiri, supposedly Earnest Hemingway’s favorite cocktail. And that’s when I feel back in love with daiquiris.

It’s a tart little thing, with rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and Luxardo liqueur, plus a lime wedge garnish. If you like grapefruit, I recommend this one!

Frozen lemon daiquiris

The frozen lemon daiquiri is a recent discovery, featuring rum, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup and ice — all mixed up together in a blender.

I discovered this daiquiri on another trip to New Orleans, this time for work. One night my coworkers and I wound up at a gumbo restaurant in the French Quarter.

(It’s always hard to know what’s a tourist trap and what’s not, but I could tell this was the real deal because there were lots of locals in line. While we waited for a table, a man who was picking up takeout told us his mom made the best gumbo, but when she didn’t make it, this place made her favorite. Sold.)

On the drink menu were frozen daiquiris, which I might have ignored, because — to recap — I was hooked on the good songs now.

But these intrigued me because they boasted that they were made with fresh juices, kind of like this frozen mango daiquiri I made a few years back. I ordered a frozen lemon one, and it was glorious.

The resulting cocktail was a sweet-tart, citrus delight reminiscent of the frozen lemonades I loved as a child.

And I still love it so, if this limoncello lemonade isn’t enough proof.

So I set out to make my own frozen lemon daiquiris at home and I wanted to share the recipe with you.

How to make the best frozen lemon daiquiri

The frozen lemon daiquiri is so easy to make — throw some rum, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and simple syrup into a blender with some ice, and voila!

The trick is fresh lemon juice. You could skimp on the fresh lemon juice and use the pre-bottled concentrate, but I wouldn’t recommend it. There will be a big change in quality.

I really think you’ll love this cocktail! It’s a perfect melody you’ll love forever. // susannah