The weather forecast says it will hit 96 this Saturday. If you plan to beat the heat floating on the river, by all means, take some cans of crispy rice lagers with you. But if you're heading to a watering hole, consider making it a frozen-watering hole. Indulge me in a memory.
When I found myself ringing in 2019 in Stockholm, I made it my mission to visit Sweden's famed Omnipollo brewery. It's a city comprised of 14 islands, making the nearly 5-mile walk more challenging to find the bridges needed in the dark, since the day's six hours of daylight were over. And while glühwein — warm, spiced wine — abounds in that season where temperatures are typically, literally freezing, I was on a mission to find a cold beer. Like, an extra cold beer. Omnipollo gets credit for being the first to serve beer from a slushy machine. It began with a blueberry flavored "slush" beer, but that night I found one that tasted exactly like lemon meringue, the frozen foam looking just like a dollop of meringue.
Oddly, I hadn't thought of it much until four and a half years later when I walked far less than 5 miles to Boss Rambler on NW Galveston for a cold beer on a hot day. Only, I caught myself staring, drooling, at their boozy slushee machines. The Stockholm thing I chalked up to "When in Rome," but Bend is a beer town and I'm a beer guy.
Mock me all you want, but not only did I get the POG slushee (passion fruit, orange, guava) made with hard seltzer, but as long as this heat sticks around, it's probably all I'm ordering despite how perfectly thirst-quenching Boss Rambler's Bajaveza Mexican lager is.
Considering the "jelly beer" trend (the process of chilling a beer to below freezing just long enough to have the contents immediately turn to slush when poured) arrived in Portland a decade ago after sweeping across Japan and Thailand, I'm actually surprised how few frozen beer/wine/seltzer offerings there are around town. Luckily, another favorite spot — less a dive bar and more a bar that makes you think of diving — the Midtown Yacht Club, employs two such chilling machines. Ask anyone who's heard that Outkast jam and they'll tell you the only thing cooler than being cool is (being) ice cold.
The Yacht Club's two offerings are "frosé" (frozen rosé) like Boss Rambler also offers, and a frozen Sauvignon Blanc. If you're expecting a sweet slush, caveat emptor, they are wines that form ice crystals via the super-chilled churning augers and as such have the sharp, acidic bite of wine. But for a buck upcharge, you can add sweet Torani syrups. In fact, they've created nine yacht-themed combos like the Thar She Blows (coconut, pineapple, vanilla) and Crockett & Tubbs (coconut, pineapple, strawberry).
Sitting with my glass of frosé, I wondered why I was also sitting with the shame of drinking a glass of pink ice through a straw. It's not what adults do. Slushees, Icees, and Slurpees are (allegedly) kids' drinks. They come in unnatural colors and are straight-up sugar. Even when it comes to margaritas, there's a perception that a frozen one is for college kids while ordering it on the rocks somehow magically makes it more mature.
I'm making a mental note to order my margies frozen from now on. Maybe someone will check my ID for the first time in ages?! Also, ice-blended drinks come with the built-in benefit of hydration, since you end up drinking the ice instead of having a couple cubes' worth melt into your drink. Heck, even a 12-ounce Coca-Cola Slurpee contains 27 grams of sugar versus 39 grams in a can of straight Coke. We all need to remember to hydrate.
