Boozy slushes for lushes at St. Louis restaurants

Editor's note: Gamlin Whiskey House and Cielo have closed.

Close your eyes and recall the snow cones of your childhood. Now, wake up and add a big-kid ingredient: booze. The enticing combination of chipped ice, fruit syrups and liquor doesn’t have to be a summertime fantasy; boozy slushes are making waves behind the bar at several St. Louis watering holes. What’s more, many of them are taking the treat in super-cool directions – replacing saccharine-laden syrups with real fruit juice and combining flavors that give our beloved Rainbow order a run for the money.

For Dustin Parres, bar manager at Gamlin Whiskey House, the boozy slush started as a sunny memory of his grandmother’s “red whiskey slush” – Jim Beam bourbon, cranberry juice and citrus whipped up in plastic gallon containers and kept in the freezer all summer.

“When I was 8, I thought I was just eating really funny ice cream,” Parres said. His grandmother’s frozen hooch left an impression; Parres uses her recipe to make the Red Whiskey slush at Gamlin Whiskey House. Another, Kentucky Tea Party, is a devilish mixture of Wild Turkey bourbon, organic black tea, amaretto, ginger and bracing cranberry and citrus. This one is a bit whiskey-forward, so you’d be wise to (slowly) consume those flaky, crystalline sheaves of ice served in a martini glass using the accompanying demitasse spoon. Better yet, bring along a couple friends and have a grown-up tea party.

In contrast to the snow cone texture of Gamlin’s cocktails, those at Shack Restaurant in Valley Park are fluid and stirrable. The standout among the trio of offerings is Alex the Lovely Assistant, which incorporates mixed fruit-infused vodka and lemon vodka with lemonade and a splash of grenadine. Blended with ice, it turns into a citrusy pink lemonade-esque masterpiece that’s so easy to drink, you could down it in one go.

For a south-of-the-border riff on a frozen favorite, head to Cielo at the Four Seasons and order the Beerita, in which a Corona longneck takes a nosedive into a pint glass of Cielo’s homemade frozen margarita. The crisp beer dials down the sugar and accents the salt in the mixture, replacing sweetness with savory flavor, lime and bright carbonation. The rules of fluid pressure and dynamics come into play here, since you can empty as much of the Corona as desired into the glass to change the cocktail’s flavor and texture.

Elsewhere, chefs and bar managers are bringing in snazzy machines for your slush-drinking pleasure. Chef-owner Kevin Nashan purchased a top-of-the-line Swan block ice shaver to make “glorified snow cones” with booze (and without) at his soon-to-open restaurant, Peacemaker Lobster and Crab Co. And at Cedar Lake Cellars in Wright City, the bar crew uses a Bunn frozen beverage machine to concoct a rotating selection of slushes that feature its wines mixed with puréed fruit. This sweeter, colder alternative to a glass of wine is offered year-round at Cedar Lake, but as the dog days of August skulk around the corner, its heyday – and that of all the boozy slushes around town – is right now.