When it comes to alcoholic beverages that go down easy, yet pack a decent punch, there are few solutions better than Jello Shooters. Here is a quick tutorial on how to become “the jello shooter guy(or girl)”.

What you will need:

• 2 ounce Plastic Souffle Cups
• 2 ounce Clear Plastic Souffle Lids
• Cookie sheet or similar firm sheet to transport the cups into the fridge
• Vodka or other form of alcohol
• Jello

The key is finding the right plastic cups, I can’t stress this enough! The only place I’ve been able to find the correct cups is at Smart & Final. They sell the cups in bags of 200, depending on the size of your event, 200 will usually cover you. You will also need to pickup lids for the cups, these are also found at Smart & Final.

For the visually inclined, here are pics of the cups and lids.

Next you will need the alcohol. I ONLY use absolut vodka and have always been very satisfied with the end product. Recently, I’ve been using absolut citron with all the citrus based jello flavors.

Lastly, you will need the Jello. Just about any flavor will do. Its a good idea to do multiple flavors(colors) as it makes for a good presentation AND it will help you keep track of the double alcohol jello shots(more on this later). I tend to stay away from cherry as it reminds me of caugh sourup when mixed with the alcohol.

Most jello boxes call for either 2 cups of boiling water 2 cups cold water or 1 cup of boiling water and 1 cup of alcohol. Basically, what we are going to do is substitute half of the cold water with alcohol. So, you end up with 1/4 of the end product being alcohol. The following are instructions specific to the 2 cups boiling/2 cups cold water box, but you can translate it to the other sizes if necessary.

Preparation:

Its a good idea to get your cups ready to receive the jello before you mix up the potion. We will need a cookie sheet or similar firm sheet(make sure it will fit in your fridge) to hold the cups and transport them into your fridge. Next we will line up as many cups as possible onto the sheet. Don’t place them too close to the edge or you will end up losing them as you move them into the fridge.

Instructions:

1. Add 2 cups boiling water into mixing bowl
2. Add jello powder and mix until all powder is dissolved
3. Mix in 1 cup cold water
4. Mix in 1 cup alcohol
5. Pour the mixture into the cups
6. Place the lids onto the cups
7. If necessary, stack the cups on top of each other. Don’t go above 3 high.
8. Place the sheet(and cups) into the refridgerator.
9. Allow approx 4 hours for them to get firm.

Other tips:

-As a cheap trick, you can designate one flavor(color) as the double alcohol flavor. Just replace the cold water with alcohol. Effectivly, this means the end result is half water and half alcohol. You can get people started on the lighter flavors and bring these out after they have already had a few. Most people either won’t notice or won’t care at that point. ;-)

-I’ve heard that freezing the alcohol the night before will reduce the amount that will evaporate and decrease the amount of time the jello takes to set. Not sure I buy the evaporation part, but it may shorten the amount of time you have to wait for the jello to set.

-I know a few people who have made margarita jello shooters with lime jello, tequilla and tripple sec. Let us know if you have some other ideas that work.

Jell-o is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods Holdings, Inc.
ABSOLUT Vodka Product of Sweden