Cocktails + Music Festivals = Happy Fans

Our favorite season is here – festival season!

Music and cocktails go together like Lennon and McCartney, so here are a few delicious cocktails that are perfect for vibing with at some of our favorite music festivals in California, Texas, Las Vegas and Florida.

CALIFORNIA

First up this spring is the famous Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, which is set to invade Indio on April 14-16 and April 21-23. Celebrating 20 years, this year’s lineup doesn’t disappoint in what’s sure to be two epic weekends. We’re stoked to see Bad Bunny, BLACKPINK, Frank Ocean and Calvin Harris, plus dozens more including acts who absolutely kill their live shows including Gorillaz, Björk, Rosalía, Blondie and Becky G.

With a rockin’ line-up like this, the best pairing for Coachella has got to be the Rockin’ Daiquiri, a pre-festival bevvy that you can batch up and pour in your YETI. It’s so refreshing you’ll want to have it for breakfast.

Rockin’ Daiquiri:

1 ½ ounces of Sammy’s Beach Bar Platinum Rum

1 ounce of sweet & sour mix

½ ounce of fresh lychee juice

½ ounce of fresh pineapple juice

Garnish: fresh lime wedge and orange peel

Preparation: In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add the Sammy’s Beach Bar Platinum Rum, sweet & sour mix, lychee juice and pineapple juice. Shake well and strain into a chilled rocks glass. Garnish with a fresh lime wedge and orange peel.

FLORIDA

Music fans who are looking to chill to great tunes on the beach in Fort Lauderdale won’t want to miss the Rock the Ocean’s Tortuga Fest. The festival, which runs from April 14-16, will feature some of music’s top stars from a variety of genres all performing on the white sand beaches of Florida. Iconic superstars Eric Church, Shania Twain, Kenny Chesney, Wiz Khalifa will headline the 3-day festival, which will also feature The Wallflowers, Niko Moon and Catie Offerman taking the stage. There will be no shortage of good music, good fun and lots and lots of sand.

There’s no better drink to pair with a beach-side music festival like Tortuga than Sammy Hagar’s award-winning sparkling rum cocktail in a can, Sammy’s Beach Bar Cocktail. Our favorite flavor to sip on the sand is Island Pop, which brings the classic taste of a Hawaiian-style rum punch with flavorful and refreshing notes of cherry, pineapple and citrus. Just one sip and we can already feel the spray of the ocean, the sand in between our toes, and the sunscreen on our nose!

TEXAS

Of course if you’re looking for some good ol’ fashioned line-dancing and boot stompin’ fun, you gotta check out the IHeartCountry Festival in Austin. This is one of the most unique country music gatherings we’ve ever come across.  Held on Saturday, May 13 at the Moody Center, this year’s festival will feature the genre’s biggest names taking the stage for thousands of their most diehard fans. Grab your cowboy hat, put on your biggest belt buckle, boot up and join us to catch live performances by superstars like Luke Bryan, Kane Brown, Sam Hunt, Elle King, Parker McCollum and more. This festival’s unique 30-minute set times, none of which overlap with each other, ensures that fans get to see as many performances by their favorite artists as possible. Wild horses couldn’t keep us away!

IHeartCountry Festival goers will definitely want to sidle up to the Crazy Hagar to get those boots a swangin’. This “crazy” drink is so good that you’ll want to fill a 10-gallon hat with this swanky but easy-to make-cocktail (but we recommend just drinking it out of glass). 

Crazy Hagar:

10-12 fresh mint leaves 

1 ½ ounces of Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum

1 ounce fresh lime juice 

¾ ounce of Amoretti Rock Candy Syrup

1 Kasteel Rouge Lambic beer, cold 

Garnish: fresh lemon wedge 

Preparation: Add the mint to a chilled highball glass. Using a muddler, gently (yet firmly) muddle the mint and fill the shaker with ice. Add the rum, lime juice and rock candy syrup. Stir well and top with Lambic beer. Garnish with a fresh lemon wedge and serve. 

LAS VEGAS

If banging your head is more your style, then Sick New World is gonna blow your mind. This fresh new festival experience will shut down the Las Vegas Strip on Saturday, May 13 with a 12-hour marathon of hard rockin’ genres like hard-rock, rap-rock, nu-metal, and more. It’s hard to contain our excitement with a star-studded line-up featuring legendary acts System of a Down, Korn, Deftones and Incubus headlining. This festival is simply a must attend for those looking to get their rock on.

A music festival like Sick New World, is the kind of place where you’re gonna scream your f'in head off, so we’ve paired a drink that’s sure to get your blood flowing and those lungs puffin’- the Wake Up Screaming. This drink is quite the thriller, pairing the exhilarating flavor of two different rums with the punch of pineapple chipotle syrup and pineapple juice. This is the perfect drink to “Wake You Up Inside” just in time to catch Evanescence on stage and get those heads bangin’.  

Wake Up Screaming:

1 ½ ounces of Sammy’s Beach Bar Platinum Rum 

½ ounce of Sammy’s Red Head Rum

1 ½ ounce of Monin Pineapple Chipotle Syrup 

3 ounces fresh pineapple juice 

Garnish: fresh pineapple cubes 

Preparation: In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add the rums, pineapple chipotle syrup and pineapple juice. Shake well and strain into a Catalina glass filled with ice. Garnish with a skewer of fresh pineapple cubes.