Italian Ice Cups Are The Thrilling Secret To Instant Margaritas

There's nothing quite like a frozen cocktail on a hot summer day. While a fruity frozen drink might be easy to acquire poolside or at a beachside bar, making them for yourself can be a more difficult proposition. If you're mixing up your own frozen margaritas, you're not only going to need all of the ingredients for the standard version of the drink, you're also going to need ice and a blender. And if you plan on drinking with a group rather than on your own, it's going to require a lot of ice.

Thankfully, there's a way to make delicious frozen margaritas that takes much of the difficulty out of the equation. Instead of a ton of fresh ingredients and a cooler full of ice, all you need is a bottle of tequila, a blender, and some of your favorite Italian ice cups. The combination makes for a pretty genius cocktail hack and will have you sipping on a delicious frosty treat in just a few minutes without leaving a huge mess behind to clean up later.

If you're not super familiar with Italian ice, it's a dessert that lives somewhere between a sorbet and a snow cone. The sweet frozen dessert is typically made from a fruit, either in concentrate or puree form), sugar, and ice. It's different than ice cream and sherbet in that it doesn't contain any egg or dairy, but it's a bit creamier in consistency than what you might get from the crushed ice of a snow cone thanks to the fresh fruit. You can typically purchase it in packs of small 6-ounce cups at your local grocery store.

The beauty of using Italian ice to make a margarita is that it's already the perfect balance of sweet and fruity out of the container, so you don't need to add sugar or tweak the juice level or juice all those limes. Who has time for that anyway? We have margaritas to drink.

You also don't need triple sec. By definition Italian ice is also, well, ice, so it's ready for you to just add tequila, blend up, and go.

If you haven't already figured it out — making a frozen margarita using Italian ice is exceptionally simple. To get started, you'll first want to defrost your Italian ice cup a little bit (just give it a quick rinse). Once you think the cup is thawed enough that you can move the contents around a bit, you're ready to add it to your blender. Conveniently, each cup has just enough Italian ice for one drink, so you'll want to add a full 2-ounce shot of tequila (blanco or reposado) for each container used. Hosting two friends? Chuck a trio of Italian ices in the blender with 6 ounces of booze, then blend at the highest setting until smooth. That's it, seriously, that's all you need to do. Pour the contents of your blender into your preferred glasses, hand them to your thirsty pals, and enjoy.

For a slightly more involved frozen marg, Italian ice company Lindy's has a recipe that also calls for lime juice (fresh or from concentrate), simple syrup, and a traditional salt-rimmed glass.

You can use any flavor of Italian ice, and if you're not a margarita fan, the hack works with other spirits, too. Try replacing the tequila with vodka for a more fruit-forward drink or with smoky mezcal in a frozen paloma. Thanks to the inclusion of the Italian ice you'll also be able to spend less time behind the bar and more time with your drinking buddy.