Mixed Drink Monday: homemade strawberry wine coolers

I feel like the "homemade" was especially necessary in this post title because otherwise it would just be "strawberry wine coolers" and who hasn't had one of those??  Probably not since your early 20s? 

From the picture this looks like many other drinks I have made (like this one and this one).  Some prop strawberries would have been nice...but I used frozen and made this at the lake and I'm not dragging (or buying) more strawberries up there just for a picture when chances are I'm going to be fighting daylight just to get a non-cell phone picture.  (Solution to that is clearly upping my daytime drinking.)  Also a wine glass but I already had this cup dirty from finishing up the Blackberry Rum Fizzes and why make more unnecessary dishes?  I think I'm too practical to be a successful blogger.  Or lazy.  And cheap.

Homemade Strawberry Wine Coolers
yield: about 4 drinks
Ingredients
-1lb fresh or frozen strawberries, washed and hulled
-pinch of coarse salt
-1 oz (2 TB) vodka
-1 bottle white wine

Directions
1) Combine the strawberries, salt, vodka, and 1 cup of the wine in the blender and blend until smooth.  Strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove (most) seeds and any remaining pulp.  Refrigerate at least an hour.
2) When ready to serve, fill your glass with ice and then about half way with the strawberry/wine/vodka mix.  Top off with wine.  Enjoy!

My Thoughts
These are the kind of drink recipes I LOVE to make, where I can the do the heavy work ahead of time and then just have to do a little mixing when ready to serve.  No blender required then.  The Blackberry Rum Fizzes were like that too.  That makes these excellent drinks to take to the lake or serve at a party.  Who wants to mess with a blender when there is drinking to get to?  Me, sometimes, but when my baby is falling asleep in the next room...not having to make a lot of noise is much preferred.

These win for convenience but they were also quite good.  It's been a while since I had a straight bottled wine cooler (my beloved grape Smirnoffs do not count) so I don't know how these compare to those but then are those are really something to use as a baseline??  Anyways, these are good.  I don't do well with straight wine, puts me to sleep quite easily, so having some fruit in these definitely helped.  It was a tasty and easy way to drink wine and one I'd definitely recommend.  Try fresh fruit if it's in season but if not, the frozen variety works too.  A good recipe to have on hand for gatherings or just for yourself!  It's easy and delicious.

Source: Annie's Eats

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In the summer I aim to make a new drink every week and share them all here, good or bad!  See them all in chronological order by following the "Mixed Drink Monday" tag here or check out my favorites by scrolling down to "Mixed Drink Monday" on my recipes page!