Some cocktails are best when served very cold. Freezer cold. Martini, anyone? These aren’t super-sweet ice-cream-laden blender drinks that fall apart if made in advance. These are serious cocktails you can make right in the liquor bottle. Store them in the freezer for a quick individual cocktail and, prepped in advance as they are, they make easy work of serving a party crowd.

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Classic Martini

1 750-milliliter bottle vodka or gin
1 cup white (dry) vermouth
1 green cocktail olive

Remove one cup of booze from the vodka or gin bottle. Replace it with one cup of vermouth. Add a green olive to identify the cocktail. Store in freezer. Serve as needed.

For a drier Martini, use less vermouth.

For a Dirty Martini, use the above recipe and add a couple of tablespoons of juice from the olive jar.

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Gibson

A Gibson is a Martini garnished with cocktail onions instead of olives. Follow the Classic Martini recipe but use a cocktail onion instead of the olive to identify the drink.

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Classic Gimlet

1 750-milliliter bottle gin
1 cup Rose’s sweetened lime juice
1 twist lime peel

Remove one cup of booze from the gin bottle. Replace it with one cup of Rose’s sweetened lime juice. Add lime twist to identify the cocktail. Store in freezer. Serve as needed.

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Lemony Gimlet


1 750-milliliter bottle gin
1 cup limoncello
1 twist lemon peel

Prepare as the Classic Gimlet, substituting a lemon twist for the lime twist identifier.

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Classic Manhattan

1 750-milliliter bottle whiskey
1 cup red (sweet) vermouth
1 teaspoon Angostura bitters
1 Maraschino cherry


Dry Manhattan: Use dry vermouth instead of the sweet red version.

Perfect Manhattan: Use 1/2 cup red vermouth and 1/2 cup dry vermouth. Omit the bitters.

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Use the identifying garnish for each of the drinks above to garnish individual drinks when serving these frosty spirits.

A cocktail shaker isn’t necessary since these drinks will be icy cold after a few hours (or days or weeks) in the freezer but serving them in chilled cocktail glasses is a nice touch. No ice is needed.

When pouring individual drinks, a splash of club soda gives each of these drinks a refreshing fizz.

These cocktails are traditionally served neat, no ice, but they are perfectly fine when served over ice in a rocks glass or in a tall Collins glass filled with ice and topped with club soda.