Bomb Pop Cocktails

Perfect for the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, or Labor Day! These Bomb Pop Cocktails are not only festive, they taste great! You can make them frozen or on the rocks, with or without alcohol. They can also be made ahead of time, which makes it easy to serve your guests during the holiday festivities. You don't even have to wait for the holiday to roll around, these frozen drinks are perfect for any hot summer day.

The three flavors in an original bomb pop popsicle are cherry, lime, and blue raspberry. I wanted to stick to those flavors and create a frozen boozy drink that can't help but remind you of the ice cream truck and all the kids running to get their favorite popsicle or ice cream. If you aren't a fan of one of those flavors, no worries, I'll give you plenty of different options to make a frozen drink you will love. You don't even have to make all three layers, simply pick your favorite flavor and just make that one.

My favorite is the cherry!

Frequently Asked Questions

If you prefer wine over vodka and want to make wine slushies they are just as delicious and easy! Here is the recipe: Wine Slushies

Ingredients & Substitutions

Red Layer

This is my favorite flavor of all time, cherry! Watermelon or raspberry are great choices if you aren't a fan of cherry flavors.

Alcohol

For this layer, I chose to use a red berry vodka by Amsterdam because that is what they had at my local liquor store and I happen to love it! I mix it with plain club soda for a delicious and light summer cocktail. For the red color and flavoring, I used a cherry sugar-free powdered drink mix I found at Walmart. If you can't find those ingredients, here are some other options.

Any cherry vodka will be perfect for this layer and here are some brands that I recommend; Svedka, Smirnoff, Three Olives, or Sky. You really can't go wrong with any of those. Or, just use your favorite clear liquor and rely on the drink mix to flavor it. My husband doesn't like vodka, so he would prefer to use rum and that works fine.

Drink Mix

If you can't find the cherry-flavored powdered or liquid drink mix, then you can use Hawaiian punch flavored mix or any flavor that you like with the red color.

White Layer

The white layer is a citrus flavor and I stuck with the original bomb pop flavor and made mine lime-flavored.

Alcohol

For this layer, I recommend using a plain vodka or any other white liquor that you like. I tried it with a lime-flavored vodka and it was just a little too bitter, but feel free to experiment with your favorite citrus vodka, that's the fun of making cocktails!

You could also use a Mike's Hard Lemonade with ice and skip the drink mix.

Drink Mix

I used a sugar-free liquid limeade flavored drink mix that I found at Walmart and it worked great. You can use any citrus flavor that you like or switch up the citrus for something else that you prefer as long as it doesn't have any color to it.

You can also use regular lemonade if you prefer.

Blue Layer

Alcohol

For the blue layer, I used blue raspberry vodka by Svedka and it worked great.

A lot of people use blue curaçao to make a blue cocktail, but that isn't going to give you a blue raspberry flavor. In fact, blue curaçao is flavored from the peels of the laraha citrus fruit that's grown on the Dutch Caribbean island, Curaçao. It's perfectly fine to use it, the blue colors are vibrant and beautiful, but it will taste different.

If you aren't a fan of blue raspberry or can't find it and don't want to use the blue curaçao, then any light colored alcohol will do. You could switch the flavor to blueberry or stick with plain and flavor it with the drink mix.

Drink Mix

I used a liquid blue raspberry sugar-free drink mix from the grocery store.

Any blueberry or blue raspberry drink mix will work perfectly fine.

How To Make a Non-Alcoholic Version

If you want to make this recipe without alcohol, it's super easy and very straightforward, just omit the alcohol and add extra water, if needed, to blend the ice and flavorings to a slushy consistency.

There are a few things to keep in mind when making the kid-friendly version and that is that the ice slushy mixture will freeze solid if left in the freezer too long. It's the alcohol that keeps the mixture from freezing solid, so if you omit it, I would make and serve the drinks right away.

Tips for making Bomb Pop Cocktails

• Gather all of your ingredients for one layer at a time, especially the ice. The ice will start to melt quickly and that leads to runny layers which tend to bleed into each other.
• Use more ice if needed. I used about 1 cup of ice per layer, which weighed 8 ounces, but you may need more. Especially if you increase the liquid amount of any ingredients. Go by look more than measurements.
• You can replace the water for the alcohol of choice in each layer and make a stronger drink. The usual cocktail has about 1½ ounces of alcohol in it, so if you made two drinks with this recipe that would be the amount of alcohol in each one.
• If you don't have access to a freezer when making the cocktails, you can get all three layers done and poured into the glasses before they start to melt as long as you have everything measured out and ready to go.
• Most importantly, have fun and don't worry if things don't go perfectly the first time you make them. They will still be delicious!

How to Make Frozen Bomb Pop Cocktails

This recipe will make 2-4 cocktails, depending on the size of your glasses. If you are using a shorter glass, you may even get 4 cocktails. Each layer makes about 1½-2 cups of slushy.

I like using the Ninja Foodi Power Blender for making frozen drinks because it has a cup that you can twist the top to move the ice around and that makes for a really smooth drink. You can use any high speed blender.

White Layer

Even though I start out layering the drink with the red layer, you will want to make the white layer first and then put it in a bag or another container in the freezer while you make the rest of the layers. This is so you don't have transfer from the darker colors to the white layer.

Start by adding the ice to your blender cup, then add the alcohol you are using. I add the drink mix directly to the cup, but you could mix it with the alcohol or the water beforehand if you want to.

Then add in 1-2 Tablespoons of water. In the video, I used 2 Tablespoons of water, but had to add more ice. If you are using limeade liquid drink mix, I would start with 1 Tablespoon of water.

Blend on high speed until smooth.

Remove the slushy mix from the blender and put it into a freezer bag or other container and put it into the freezer until you are ready to assemble your drinks. Rinse out the blender cup and move on to the next layer.

Blue Layer

The directions are exactly the same as the white layer except you will use the blue raspberry liquid drink mix. Rinse out the blender cup and move to the Red Layer.

Red Layer

Repeat the same instructions for the red layer. I used powdered cherry drink mix for this layer and the 2 Tablespoons of water worked well.

Layering the Bomb Pop Cocktail

Start with the red layer and fill the glass ⅓ of the way with the red slushy mix. If you have the drink mix in the freezer in a freezer bag, cut a corner off of the bottom and squeeze it into the drink glasses, or you can spoon it out if that is easier for you.

Repeat with the white layer and then top off the glass with the blue layer.

If you are making multiple cocktails, I recommend layering the first red layer into all of the glasses and then return any unused red slushy drink to the freezer. Repeat with the white and blue layer.

Place a mini bomp pop into the glass for decoration, if desired. I also like to use (affiliate link)colorful straws that I get on Amazon.

Serve & Enjoy!