Jello Shots: Mixing Awesome with Awesome

One of the things about social context that I really like is that it allows us to try things we never have before. So today's blog might not save the planet, nor may it change the way society works, but it will make the long weekend a hell of a lot funner.

I never had jello shots before and really wanted to try making some. It sounded pretty easy to do when I looked it up. You can see the full recipe here. Here's what it calls for:

What You'll Need
(Note: 1 cup = 8 ounces)

1. 6 ounces of Jello or gelatin mix (usually 1 large package) - Any flavor except sugar-free
2. 16 ounces of boiling water
3. 6 ounces of cold water
4. 20 small plastic cups or shot glasses
5. Mixing bowl 1
6. 10 ounces of 80-proof hard alcohol (cold).

Note: While vodka is the most common type of alcohol used in Jello shots, any type of hard liquor will do. See below for various Jello/alcohol flavor combinations.

How to Make a Jello Shot
-Pour the contents of your Jello packet into a large mixing bowl.
-Mix in the boiling water while stirring gently. Let it sit for a minute so that the gelatin can fully activate.
-Stir in the alcohol and cold water.
-Set up your small cups or shot glasses on a serving tray.
-Give each cup a small spray of cooking oil. This will help keep the Jello from sticking to the bottom.
-Pour the alcohol/jello/water mixture into the cups or glasses
-Place your tray of Jello shots in the refrigerator and let them cool for at least two hours.
-Remove from the fridge, serve and enjoy!

I changed the recipe a bit to fit whatever I had. I thought I had vodka but it ended up being gin. I bought two interesting sounding flavours of Jello: strawberry-kiwi and strawberry-banana. I decided to use the gin with the strawberry-kiwi one, and a bit of leftover rum with the strawberry-banana one (I called my mom and we rationalized that rum tastes good in fruity drinks so why wouldn't it work?).

Around two hours later, the liquids jellified inside the small bowl. I didn't use any plastic so as to not use plastic cups uselessly. I tried cutting the jello into squares but that was rather pointless, so I resorted to using spoons as our shot glasses. My test subjects were my boyfriend Anthony, and my mom.

So first, we started with the strawberry-kiwi gin shots. No joke, it smelled like Purell or Febreeze. They both gave me similar reactions, and when I tried it for myself, I understood why. Gin should neeeeever be used in these shots. Oh wow, it tasted the way I imagined Purell would. Then we tried the strawberry-banana rum jello shots. Oh God. It smelled better than the gin ones, but tasted soooo baaad. They were actually pretty strong. Anthony and my mom's facial expressions intensified and I laughed.

I enjoyed this experiment even though I will probably throw everything out. I never tried jello shots and figured it would be worth it to kill two birds with one stone and try to make them at the same time. It was really fast to make - aside from waiting for it to turn to jelly - and I took too much pleasure out of watching people try it. Next time I will definitely use vodka, and I might need to buy little shot cups if I don't want to serve people mush.

Want to know more?
Jello shot instructions: http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-a-jello-shot
All images were retrieved on Google.