The drinks of summer Chill with slushies and cocktails around Milwaukee
When the sun starts setting at 4:30 in the afternoon and the temperature doesn’t crack the freezing mark, you might wish you’d taken the time for one more leisurely summer cocktail on a patio somewhere, with nothing more pressing to do than watching condensation roll down the glass.
There’s still time to make a memory, and these summery cocktails could help:
Poptails at Sneaky Pete’s
The plaza along St. Paul Avenue outside the Milwaukee Public Market makes an ideal patio; it’s spacious and popping with flowers, and the peoplewatching is first rate. Take it all in with a drink from new-this-year Sneaky Pete’s Poptails, the stand outside the market that sells cocktails with a frozen pop dunked into them. It’s an arm of Pete’s Pops, the frozen-pops maker with three locations, a dozen or so mobile carts and 100 pop flavors that rotate on and off the menu.
Sneaky Pete’s offerings might change, too. Lately, the stand, which uses fresh juices, served two boozy slushies (the fabulous Coffee Blaster, made with brandy, bourbon and coffee milk, and watermelon with tequila and lemongrass) and three poptails, blackberry gin fizz (gin, elderflower liqueur, hard seltzer and a blackberry pop), peach Bellini (prosecco, frozen raspberries and a peach pop) and a spiked Arnold Palmer (vodka, sweet tea and lemonade). The pops keep the drinks cold and flavor them as they slowly melt. And besides, they’re just fun. Each drink is $10.
The stand also sells pops sans drinks for the kiddos and anyone not imbibing. Look for Sneaky Pete’s to return next year, with the menu changing more frequently, owner Pete Cooney said. In the meantime, it’ll be open at least through September, and possibly later than that, with warm drinks.
Hours: Noon to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. Milwaukee Public Market is at 400 N. Water St.; the Sneaky Pete’s stand is closer to Broadway along East
St. Paul Avenue. petespops.net.
Slushies at Voyager
Although it’s easy to think of Voyager as a wine bar and store for its thoughtful selection of wines by the bottle and the pour, it’s also a bar bar, ready to mix cocktails. And, delightfully for summer’s warm stretches, it also has a pair of slushy machines.
Count on the popular frosé to be on hand, garnished with frozen blackberries when I had it. Other frosés typically are goosed with vodka, but Voyager uses white rum instead. The second slushy machine is Voyager’s playground; recently it held Sangrita, Voyager’s frozen Margarita with a float of red wine, a most excellent idea. But visitors might find Daiquiri or Negroni in slushy form instead. (Slushies are $12.)
Voyager’s sidewalk seating now has a broad orange awning to shelter customers from sun and sprinkles, a welcoming spot to sit with a drink (and maybe a Euro snack from the pantry shelves at Voyager, which also sells its own frozen custard by the pint now, too). From the patio, watch the world go by on East Lincoln, South Kinnickinnic and South Howell avenues and South Allis Street, Bay View’s busy hub.
Hours: Noon to 10 p.m. Monday to Thursday, noon to midnight Friday and Saturday, 2 to 8 p.m. Sunday. 422 E. Lincoln Ave. voyagermke.com
Goodkind’s summer sangria
Sangria says summer at Goodkind restaurant in Bay View, where a number of cocktails are made with seasonal ingredients. It looks as refreshing as it tastes on a hot day on the sidewalk patio that’s framed by standing planters filled with flowers and herbs.
The sangria ($10) is made with rosé, its color deepened by house raspberry syrup. Spain’s Lustau brandy, Axta Spanish vermouth and the Italian aperitivo Cocchi Rosa build the flavors, with house lime-leaf tincture providing sangria’s necessary smack of citrus.
The garnish — a stem of fresh tarragon, a stick of grapefruit and a flower — makes the drink as pretty as a picture; just picture yourself in Spain drinking it.
Hours: 5 to 10 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday for brunch. 2457 S. Wentworth Ave. Indoor tables can be reserved through the website, goodkindbayview.com
Lost Valley Cider Co. slushies
Guess what the slushies at Milwaukee’s only hard-cider bar are made with?
The Walker’s Point bar keeps several flavors ($9) spinning at once. Recently that included strawberry watermelon lemonade, made with strawberry cider plus strawberry-watermelon vodka, lemon juice and Triple Sec, and mango Tajin, a boozy spin on mangonadas: Blake’s El Chavo, a mango and habanero hard cider, is spiked with mango vodka and the cup garnished with mild Chamoy and Tajin, the sweet-spicy chile sauce and seasoning, and the slight heat with the cold is so appealing.
Lost Valley is open indoors as well as out now, and customers can order and pay from the QR codes displayed on the tops of the sidewalk tables.
Hours: 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday to Friday, noon to 11 p.m. Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. 408 W. Florida St. lostvalley.com
Heirloom canned cocktails
So the only patio for you is the one in your backyard, as long as everything is so darned pandemic-y? Understood. Heirloom, the liqueur brand that’s an offshoot of Milwaukee’s Bittercube bitter makers, sells ready-to-drink canned cocktails ($15 for a four-pack) that can hang out in the fridge to chill before you hang out on your porch, balcony or deck to chill.
The Creme de Flora liqueur makes a sprightly Collins, that quintessential summer sipper: crisp, fizzy, lightly citrusy. This one has a floral note from the liqueur (but no shrinking violets — the flowers include bold marigold and chamomile). The pale-orange Alchermes Spritz, made with Heirloom’s Alchermes aperitivo and sparkling wine, is akin to drinking fizzy botanicals and baking spices.
Hours: noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday to get it from the source, Bittercube Bazaar at 4828 W. Lisbon Ave. Pick up after ordering online at bittercubebazaar.com. Also available at liquor stores.
Contact dining critic Carol Deptolla at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or (414) 2242841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_diner.