Get ready to wow everyone at the cookout party with patriotic layered Memorial Day Mocktails! Using a few easy science tricks, you can make a refreshing red, white & blue layered drink for kids and adults to enjoy at your backyard bbq party!
Red White and Blue Memorial Day Mocktails – Fun Party Drinks For Kids And Adults!
These layered Memorial party drinks are perfect kid friendly drinks for party punch or cookout drinks! We made ours a layered red white and blue drink for Memorial Day drinks, but you can make your drinks any color you want to match your holiday or party theme.
To Make Red White Blue Patriotic Drink Layers
Ingredients for Memorial Day Layered Drinks:
- Cranberry juice
- Sprite
- Blue Drink (see what we used on the recipe card)
- Ice
- Frozen blueberries, optional, for garnish
How do you pour layered drinks?
- Tip your glass and slowly pour the liquid with the heaviest sugar into the glass.
- Next, hold a spoon near the bottom layer with the back turned up. Slowly pour liquid with the next highest sugar content over the back of the spoon, making sure not to mix it with the bottom layer.
- Repeat the process with the liquid with the next highest (third highest) sugar content for the top layer. Slowly pour over the back of the spoon so you don’t mix with the other two layers.
- If you have more than three layers, continue the process, going from highest sugar content liquid at the bottom to the least amount of sugar at the top.
DRINK RECIPE TIP: The liquid with the heaviest sugar content will sink to the bottom, so you want to start with that layer. The trick is to make sure they sugar contents of each drink are significantly different.
We had three drinks (red, white, and blue) for our layered red white blue drink.
Two of the layers were only 1 sugar count different and it took us a few tries to get the layers to pour separate.
So, if you can, use liquids with significantly different sugar counts.
IMPORTANT RECIPE TIP: IF YOU CAN’T GET YOUR DRINK LAYERS TO STAY SEPARATED, SEE OUR SECRET TRICK THAT WE’VE LISTED IN THE FREE PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD!
Are you supposed to mix layered drinks?
Layered drinks are mainly for a cool visual effect.
Drink them through a straw with the understanding that you’ll probably be drinking each layer separately.
Mixing them often results in a less than pleasant looking drink color, but if you’re doing mocktails for kids they won’t care.
How do you drink layered drinks?
The best way to drink a layered drink is with a straw so that the layers stay (partially) separated.
However, as you drink, the layers will begin to mix together.
At this point no one will care because they’ve already experienced the drink its cool layered drink form.
GET THE SPECIFIC RECIPE WE USED TO MAKE RED, WHITE AND BLUE LAYERED DRINKS!
RECIPE TIP: Be sure to use clear glasses so you can see the layers! We used small mason jars like these and they were super cute and are small enough for cool party drinks for kids!
The Fun Science Behind Layered Drinks
Let’s talk about the drink science, because this is a fun science lesson to do for kids STEM activities, too!
So, why do certain drink layers sink and others stay at the top?
Fun Kitchen Science For Kids
Layered drinks density depends on specific gravity and a lot on sugar content.
(Sorry about that.)
“Specific gravity is the term that’s used to describe a density of a substance when it’s compared to another substance, usually water at 4 °C [39.2°F]. This gives you a single number that’s useful because it allows you to compare the densities of many different types of material. The specific gravity of water is 1, and other substances can be measured against this.”
[get a science project here]
In our layer drink, the liquid with the most sugar will sink to the bottom (if poured correctly).
The drink with the second-most amount sugar should stay in the middle.
And — you guessed it! — the drink with the least amount of sugar will stay floating at the top.
This is a great science concept for kids: things may look the same and be the same size, but can weigh different. (Density tells you how tight those molecules are packed together!)
GET MORE RED, WHITE & BLUE FOODS FOR YOUR MEMORIAL DAY PARTY
Enjoy your Memorial Day and let us know how your Memorial Day mocktails turn out!
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