Nothing's Better Than An Adult Slushie on a Hot Day

The Grapefruit Slushie at Rick's Roadhouse

Photo by Mike Braca

Sweltering weather has a way of making kitsch unironically appealing. When it’s 100 degrees on a good day, with 2,000% humidity, who has time for tastefulness and decorum? Who wants to remain a respectable adult? Not a one of us. We all enter an unapologetically warped, regressive state in which more is more, bad choices get a pass and youthful nostalgia mixes with grownup indulgence.

There is no more perfect emblem of this phenomenon than the spiked slushie. Both its halves – the spiked half and the slushie half – are all id, even if one hails from middle-aged territory and the other from middle school. And to boot, it’s possibly the utmost democratizing summer drink, capable of felling class and political divides in a single, icy, high-proof swoop.

At Rick’s Roadhouse, Providence’s unapologetic bastion of Americana, spiked slushies are king all season long. One in particular, the Grapefruit Slushie, comes with a side of Rhode Island pride – since it pays homage to Del’s, the state’s most iconic iced lemonade. “A couple of years ago they came out with a grapefruit version that blew me away,” says Harrison Elkhay, who directs beverages for Rick’s and its sister restaurants. He began to think about a NSFW version to serve, and soon a citrusy, vodka-soused, Snookie-approved slushie was born.

Alright, alright. There’s a little class involved. Rick’s uses only fresh-squeezed juices, never the concentrated stuff or high-fructose whatchamacalit laced with red dye #47. The slushies come with perfectly textured ice in a highball glass, with no plastic cup or neon straw in sight.

Grapefruit Slushie
Serves one

“It’s relatively easy but kind of difficult,” Harrison says, enigmatically, about how to DIY this spiked slushie. Turns out that the easy part is the straightforwardness of the ingredients and the process: It contains just one liquor, a couple of juices and ice. (Blend, stir, sip.) But translating what they do at Rick’s to a home bar is a challenge, since Harrison and his team utilize an Island Oasis machine for the ice and the blending. It is to an average blender what a monster truck is to a beat-up sedan. Nevertheless, Harrison thinks the amateur bartender can still wind up with a passable version.

• 1.5 oz of Deep Eddy grapefruit vodka (a Texan brand, natch)
• 3 oz fresh-squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice 
• .5 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• Approximately 1.5 cups of crushed ice
• Fresh grapefruit slice

Add the vodka, fresh juices and ice to a blender and pulse lightly until blended but not pureed. Serve in a tall hurricane glass with a fresh slice of grapefruit.

Rick’s Roadhouse
370 Richmond Street • 272-7675