5 Cheap And Creative Cocktails For The College Girl On A Budget
Being a college girl means you are most certainly on a tight budget, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun and enjoy nice cocktails without breaking the bank!
1. Hocus Pocus Punch
This is one of my favorite cocktails to make with my best friends, particularly around Halloween due to the name of the drink and the film that inspired that. This drink only has four ingredients, which are super affordable and can easily be customized to fit your preferences regarding flavor. To make this spooky, jack-o-lantern orange drink you will need orange sherbet, V8 Splash Tropic Blend Juice, Sprite, or some type of fizzy drink, and of course a shot or two of alcohol; our favorite to add to this mixture is vodka, Tito’s would be my recommendation. You can totally change up the flavors of juice and sherbet to your favorites, I know that raspberry sherbet and V8 Splash Berry Blend Juice are another popular combination that sticks within the Hocus Pocus and Halloween themes. If you are feeling like being extra festive, add some whipped cream, spooky sprinkles, and a cute patterned straw to the mix! This cocktail holds so many good memories for me and my friends, as I hope it will for yours.
2. Peach Punch Bubbly
This next cocktail is perfect for that Saturday morning hangover brunch that you and your friends host after a night out! If you are getting kind of tired of the classic Mimosa made with orange juice, try this peach variation. I found this bubbly concoction on Pinterest and never got to try it out in college, however, it sounds amazing. This cocktail recipe is even easier to follow than the Hocus Pocus Punch recipe because you only need two ingredients to make it. The only ingredients that you will need are Peach Punch Juice from Minute Maid as well as Barefoot Bubbly in the peach flavor of course. Both of these ingredients are ridiculously affordable and when combined appear to be a very fancy beverage, even if you consume it out of a red solo cup! As the photo below says, you need only to fill half of your glass with the Peach Punch and the remaining half with Peach Barefoot Bubbly, it is really that simple! If peach and orange are not really your thing, you can feel free to change up the flavors of the juice as well as the bubbly to better accommodate your pallet. A nice berry-flavored juice or even apple juice would be a fun recipe to try as well!
3. Cherry Vanilla Beam Boost
This next cocktail was honestly discovered by accident by my roommate and me while we were quarantined together at the end of our senior year. All we had for possible mixers and alcohol options were cherry-flavored soda, Dr. Thunder to be precise, and a bottle of Vanilla Jim Beam Whiskey. We just mixed them together and really did not expect it to be as delicious as it was! The cherry from the soda and the vanilla from the smooth whiskey blended together to create a nice flavor that leveled out the flavor of the whiskey. Even if you are not usually a whiskey drinker, I highly recommend this concoction, as I am not usually drawn to order whiskey but really enjoyed this combination.
4. Strawberry Lemonade Twist
This next one is a lot more fruity and has a really nice tang to it. It is another one that has been saved to my Pinterest board ever since I became of age to drink legally! This one has a few more ingredients than the other cocktails on this list, however, these ingredients are not very expensive and a little goes a long way. To create this Strawberry Lemonade Twist cocktail, you will need to purchase 7 Up or Sprite, Strawberry Lemonade flavored vodka (which is probably the most expensive ingredient but a bottle of this size would last you for quite a while), a bottle of my personal favorite wine which is Pink Moscato from the exceptionally affordable brand that is Barefoot, and a few limes to act as a nice garnish and to add another little punch of flavor to the cocktail. Just like the Hocus Pocus Punch recipe, you can obviously swap out any of the ingredients to better suit what you already have lying around at home or your taste preferences. For instance, you can totally just grab a bottle of strawberry lemonade and a bottle of vodka and get a similar tasting cocktail, but if you want to get a little more creative and have some fun, then definitely give the original recipe a try.
5. Baby Guinness Shot
Now technically this next recipe is for a shot, not a cocktail, but I just had to include it because it is one of my favorite things to have if I’m going to drink and I never hear anyone talk about this! When I was in Ireland in June of 2019 with my family and some close friends of ours, I was introduced to this shot by our family friend. It quickly became something that I ordered everywhere we went along with whatever other beverage I ordered that evening. To create this Irish shot, you will need a few quality ingredients: coffee liqueur and Irish cream. Those are seriously the only ingredients. Contrary to what the name suggests, this shot does not contain any Guinness, however, it is made to look like a small stout of the famous Irish stout, which is where the name of the shot is derived from. I cannot recommend you trying this shot enough, it is so easy to make and is a wonderful option to warm you up on a chilly evening. Drink responsibly my friends and enjoy!
