by Kate Johns

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: May 23, 2008

What better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than to truly enjoy the festivities by mixing up some great tasting alcohol drinks to be shared with friends, family and when you've had enough to drink your favorite enemies?

Personally the best recipe for Fourth of July cocktails is a smooth tasting Canadian beer in a frosty mug, just pulled from the freezer. Even a cold beer just pulled from the beer cooler goes down really great. Because we live so close to the border of Canada we get some great tasting beer. Drinking several Canadian beers and enjoying the sultry, sunny weather that July Fourth usually brings while basking on a beach with friends enjoying fun, frivolity and fireworks is my way of having a great Fourth of July.

Because mixing drinks at the beach or a park is a difficult process to endure, getting sand in a drink, might add to the fiber, but it doesn't add to the overall taste. We mix ours at home and take the drinks over to the beach as carefully as we can.

Considering that I have become somewhat of a health nut lately, I make drinks that have healthy ingredients in them to counterbalance all that alcohol. Here are some great tasting cocktails to enjoy on the Fourth of July or anytime during the gorgeous, lazy hazy days of summer:

Long Island Green Tea
2 ounces Green Tea Vodka
Lemon juice
1 ounce orange liqueur
ounce golden rum
2 to 3 teaspoons simple syrup

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, add all the ingredients, cover and shake until mixed, Chill in a cooler or a freezer, whatever is handy. Strain into tall decorative glasses and drink!

This one really beats the heat!

Summer Watermelon Cosmopolitan

8 cups diced watermelon
small cut up watermelon
8 ounces lemon vodka chilled
7 ounces of simple syrup
1 can of coconut juice
1 fresh lemon

Chill watermelon in the freezer for 30 minutes. Blend all the ingredients in the blender until the contents are smooth. Squeeze some fresh lemon in and serve in some decorative drinking glasses or a plastic cup, whatever is handy.

All that's left to do is sit back, relax and Enjoy!

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