9 Best Boozy Ice Cream Recipes

You shouldn’t have to justify bringing boozy ice cream into your life, but if you do, think about life as an adult. You can spend your hard-earned money on cool stuff like new frying pans and toilet paper. You can choose to stay up late, but crawl into bed no later than 10 PM, anyway. You can make spreadsheets to budget your bills and schedule your own dentist appointments. And you can buy alcohol—all kinds of alcohol.

Being an adult is fun, but what if you’re young at heart?

That’s where alcohol infused ice cream is justified.

Ice cream is great, with us as soon as we’re old enough to hold the cone on our own. Alcohol is an experience, especially the first day you turn drinking age. Throw these two into a blender together and you know what you have.

Now where to start? There are so many kinds of ice cream, so many kinds of alcohol, and so many techniques to blend them together that you couldn’t possibly be expected to know where to start.

That’s where I come in. Here are the best boozy ice cream recipes, for whatever suits your taste buds.

Do you like chocolate ice cream?

You’d be an outlier if you didn’t.

It’s an ice cream classic, a staple of every child’s poolside, summer memories. Perhaps, as the children grow, they want to try variations of the old classic without straying too far from the beloved flavor. Variations include rocky road, fudge, and cookie dough.

Here are a couple 21 plus variations.

Guinness Milk Chocolate Ice Cream

Full disclosure, Guinness is my favorite beer. I like how smooth it is, how dark it is, and I even like the way the bottle fits in my hand.

I love the way it tastes with chocolate.

Guinness Milk Chocolate Ice Cream, with its straightforward recipe and simple yet unique, rich taste, is a great go-to for satisfying any random liquor ice cream craving that may pop up.

Baileys Coffee Float

This one is a bit more complicated to put together, but well worth the effort.

Ice cream floats and their light, airy texture can brighten anyone’s day, regardless of where the hands on the clock may be. Made with coffee, ice cream, and Baileys Irish cream, the Baileys Coffee Float is the new ambrosia for chocolate lovers, day drinkers, and coffee addicts alike.

Drink it out of a pint or an oversized wine glass, top it with sprinkles, cherries, or oreo crumbs—do whatever you want, but make sure you love every second of it.

Would you prefer something fruity?

Fruit flavors have this way of making people feel alive. Each fruit has a distinct taste, but they all seem to have the same refreshing effect.

It’s no surprise, then, that fruit flavors are popular in both the ice cream and alcohol worlds. From rainbow sherbet to raspberry ripple, and pink moscato to pineapple Ciroc, this combination was always meant to be.

Sparkling Wine-spiked Lemony Strawberry Sorbet

Bright red and smooth, the Sparkling Wine-spiked Lemony Strawberry Sorbet tastes as good as it looks. Spoon it into a cocktail glass and garnish it with berries to make your Instagram followers so jealous they scroll past without liking your picture.

But it’s more than aesthetic we care about. Strawberry and lemon are great flavors on their own, and the champagne has a way of tying them together for a unique, flavorful experience.

Moscato & Blackberry Ice Cream

On the other end of the color spectrum is Moscato & Blackberry Ice Cream.

Much like the Guinness Chocolate Ice Cream recipe, this is of the simpler variety of spiked ice cream. The recipe calls for only five ingredients, basic kitchen tools, and quick, simple steps to put it together. The only hard part is waiting eight hours for it to freeze, but that just makes the product of your hard work taste all the more sweet.

Boozy Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ice cream in a bowl is great. Alcohol from a glass is efficient. But what if you want to wrap your hands around something cool and sink your teeth into something flavorful? For those who don’t want to get their cold, alcoholic treat with a spoon, here are a couple boozy ice cream sandwich recipes.

Nutella Frangelico Ice Cream Sandwiches

Some years ago, Nutella became a big deal on social media, becoming a household name and finding its way into every dessert menu I picked up. I, however, remained loyal to peanut butter, consistently choosing the old classic for my morning toast, in my smoothies, and for consumption in general.

Then Nutella Frangelico Ice Cream Sandwiches came along. They made a filthy cheater out of me, but the rich, chocolate hazelnut taste is worth the shame.

The Frangelico—amber, hazelnut-flavored alcohol—is infused into cream, and the spiked ice cream is squished between two Nutella cookies in this recipe. Forever unable to resist extra flavor, I added a swirl of Nutella into the ice cream and, not often a fan of crunch, left out the chocolate chip topping. Maybe you’ll do the same, or throw both in. Maybe we’ve both been considering how it might taste rolled in Oreo crumbles. Who cares? Go nuts.

Boozy & Glittery Ice Cream Sandwiches

Speaking of toppings, this is too vibrant a conversation to leave out sparkles.

These Boozy & Glittery Ice Cream Sandwiches have a fairly straightforward recipe, with flavors that can be swapped out to your liking. What sets them apart is the dusting of edible glitter along the outside. The color schemes you can make here are limited only to your imagination, and may give the strawberry sorbet a run for its #Instaworthy money.

Liquor Infused Popsicles

So you don’t want to get your hands so sticky. That, or you just want to get your tongue stuck on ice. Either way, these alcohol infused ice cream pops will make a great poolside treat.

Vodka Gummy Bear Pops

Vodka infused gummy bears are not new—to anyone who’s been bored in college, anyway. To make them a novelty all over again, drop them into some popsicle molds along with some soda, though, and you have Vodka Gummy Bear Pops.

This recipe does require a bit of waiting. The gummy bears must soak in the vodka for several hours, and then the ice pops must freeze, but they come out to such a cute, tasty treat that it’s worth it.

Lemonade Moonshine Popsicles

Lemonade is a classic, universally appreciated taste. Lemonade Moonshine Popsicles bring their taste, and a pretty, ombre effect, to a strong alcoholic dessert.

To really round out the summertime classic theme, add in some cranberry juice to a few of your popsicles for pink lemonade moonshine popsicles.

One last thing…

Oatmeal Cookie Pudding Shot

This Oatmeal Cookie Pudding Shot was recommended to me by a friend, and I admit I was skeptical at first. I’d never heard of oatmeal cookie ice cream before, much less with liquor.

Plot twist: the recipe includes no oatmeal.

Made with three types of alcohol, chocolate pudding, milk, and Cool Whip, the end result is a snickerdoodle masquerading as a liquor-infused ice cream shot. (The name claims it’s pudding, but the recipe dictates to keep it frozen. Keep it frozen for, say, eight hours, and it has the same texture and creaminess of ice cream. Therefore, it’s ice cream.)

Everyone has their own tastes, but there's a whole world full of boozy ice cream recipes out there. I hope you’ve found one which appeals to you or, better yet, nine of them.