My Sand Bucket Cocktail is the perfect summer drink to enjoy by the lake. I guarantee this sand bucket drink recipe is the best rum bucket you’ll ever try!
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Don’t judge me, but I’m slightly obsessed with TikTok these days. In case you’ve never heard of it before, it’s somewhat of a newer social media platform featuring one-minute videos that people upload of themselves or someone else “doing something”.
I’m purposely being general when I say “doing something” because what people post varies immensely. You’ll find people singing, dancing, telling jokes, doing pranks, sharing fashion advice, and even doing quick cooking tutorials. As long as it fits into a one-minute video, you can post it!
Although I do enjoy watching my fair share of pranks and catchy dances on TikTok, I’m recently finding myself gravitating towards more tutorial-type videos. I really like the quick tips and simple recipe ideas I’ve been finding lately. I’m noticing they help get my creative juices flowing.
Case in point, this sand bucket drink idea! I have seen so many of these summer drinks in sand buckets popping up in my TikTok feed lately. And my friends have seen these bucket drinks too and have passed them along for me to take a look at. I took it as a gentle nudge to get me to make my own version for my weekly Thirsty Thursday videos.
Who am I to deprive my friends, and you of course, of enjoying a delicious summer bucket drink?! I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I sat there and did nothing. So I did what any caring person would do…I bought myself a sand pail and got to formulating the perfect bucket drink recipe for ya!
My challenge was to come up with some actual ingredient measurements for my summer cocktail recipe. If you have come across any of these beach bucket cocktails on TikTok, you might’ve noticed that the people sharing them don’t give any specific measurements of ingredients. Basically, they just pour their alcohol and juices into the beach pails and end up with a row of fabulous looking rum bucket drinks!
As fun as that all sounds, you all should know by now that I’m more of a recipe girl. My brain just works better when I have exact directions to follow. I guess it’s the “teacher” personality in me.
My first order of business was to head out shopping for supplies. I grabbed my pretty orange sand pail aka sand bucket aka beach bucket from Target for a whopping 99 cents. They had a red pail too! I’ve linked it here. I also found similar sized buckets on Amazon. They are just a tad bit smaller so you might need to adjust your drink measurements a bit if using them. They’ll work just fine though!
I also purchased some neon plastic straws and cute drink umbrellas while I was out. Here are the links to the neon plastic straws and drink umbrellas. I know plastic straws are kind of a big no-no right now for some, so feel free to use any other type of straw you prefer. Or go completely rogue and drink it right out of the sand bucket…I won’t tell on you!
With the supplies out of the way, it was time to start concocting my own rendition of the popular summer bucket drink with different liquors, juices, and fruit. It was an extremely tough job, but after hours and days of extensive labor, I finally perfected the Ultimate Sand Bucket Cocktail Recipe just for you.
Before we get into the bucket drink recipe, I want to give you a warning. I feel obliged to let you know that these summer bucket drinks are not for the faint of heart. One sand bucket holds the equivalent of three drinks worth of alcohol. It’s literally a summer cocktail on STEROIDS.
My personal opinion, grab your sweetie and an extra straw. You can sip on this sand bucket drink together while enjoying your day on the lake!
How to Make a Sand Bucket Cocktail
- The most important thing to know when making these bucket drinks is that EVERYTHING is customizable. You can switch out the alcohols, juices, fruits, and even the carbonated soda. As long as you stick with the measurements I provided, your beach bucket cocktail will come out amazing. I will give you suggestions in terms of the swapping out of ingredients as we walk through the recipe.
½ cup coconut rum, ¼ tropical fruit rum, ½ fruit juice, ¼ pineapple juice, 1 can orange Fanta, 1 can mango hard seltzer, frozen and fresh fruit for garnish
Begin by adding ice to your sand bucket. Add enough ice to fill the bucket ¾ of the way full. I ended up having to add more than what is pictured below.
Add ½ cup of coconut rum to your beach bucket.
Next, add ¼ of a cup of tropical fruit rum. Feel free to substitute a different flavored rum like pineapple, mango, or even banana. Or you can skip the flavor all together and just go for a regular silver rum.
The fruit juice comes next. You’ll want to add ½ of a cup of your fruit juice. Any variety of fruit juice will work but I used the V8 Splash mango peach variety.
You’ll want to add ¼ of a cup of pineapple juice next. Again, you can swap the pineapple juice for something else like orange juice.
With your juices and rums in the sand bucket, give it a good stir to mix everything together.
Add a can of orange Fanta next. You can substitute Sprite, 7-Up, or any flavored sparkling water instead. I think I’ll make it with a mango-flavored Bubly next time!
Now it’s time to add your floating can of hard seltzer. I used the mango-flavored hard seltzer by Bud Light but the skies are the limit here when choosing what to put in your beach bucket cocktail. You can use any brand of flavored hard seltzer or even add a bottled drink like Smirnoff Ice. Mike’s Hard Lemonade bottles would work well too!
Open up the can and quickly flip it into your sand bucket cocktail so it’s floating upside down in your drink. Now is the time to drop in some frozen fruit too!
Put a few maraschino cherries on your drink umbrella and add it to your sand pail along with a straw. Adding fruit to your shovel is completely optional but I couldn’t help myself. It made for the perfect picture!
Again, this Sand Bucket Cocktail is completely and totally customizable to your likings and to what you have on hand. Just follow my measurements and you’ll be on the way to the best summer bucket drink you’ll consume this season. Enjoy!
Tequila Thursday Cocktails
- Strawberry Margaritas on the Rocks
- Tequila Sunrise
- Chocolate and Cafe Tequila Pudding Shots
- Spicy Mango Margaritas
Thirsty Thursday
- Sand Bucket Cocktail
- Cruzan Tropical Fruit Rum
- Easy Patriotic Mimosa Recipe
- Frozen Banana Daiquiri Recipe
- Banana Coconut Rum Punch
- 3 Ingredient Watermelon Vodka Slush
- Pineapple Sex on the Beach Drink Recipe
- 8 Low-Calorie Delicious Flavored Vodka Soda Ideas
- White Claw Wine Spritzer
- Fruity Fuzzy Navel
- Pineapple Paradise Mimosa plus Mocktail Recipe
- Blackberry Mojitos
- Strawberry Vodka Lemonade
Sand Bucket Cocktail
My Sand Bucket Cocktail is the perfect summer drink to enjoy by the lake. I guarantee this sand bucket drink recipe is the best rum bucket you’ll ever try!
Ingredients
- ½ cup coconut rum, ¼ tropical fruit rum, ½ fruit juice, ¼ pineapple juice, 1 can orange Fanta, 1 can mango hard seltzer, frozen and fresh fruit for garnish
Instructions
- Begin by adding ice to your sand bucket. Add enough ice to fill the bucket ¾ of the way full.
- Add ½ cup of coconut rum to your beach bucket.
- Next, add ¼ of a cup of tropical fruit rum. Feel free to substitute a different flavored rum like pineapple, mango, or even banana. Or you can skip the flavor all together and just go for a regular silver rum.
- The fruit juice comes next. You’ll want to add ½ of a cup of your fruit juice. Any variety of fruit juice will work but I used the V8 Splash mango peach variety.
- You’ll want to add ¼ of a cup of pineapple juice next. Again, you can swap the pineapple juice for something else like orange juice.
- With your juices and rums in the sand bucket, give it a good stir to mix everything together.
- Add a can of orange Fanta next. You can substitute Sprite, 7-Up, or any flavored sparkling water instead. I think I’ll make it with a mango-flavored Bubly next time.
- Now it’s time to add your floating can of hard seltzer. I used the mango-flavored hard seltzer but the skies are the limit here when choosing what to put in your beach bucket cocktail. You can use any brand of flavored hard seltzer or even add a bottled drink like Smirnoff Ice. Mike’s Hard Lemonade bottles would work too.
- Open up the can and quickly flip it into your sand bucket cocktail so it’s floating upside down in your drink. Now is the time to drop in some frozen fruit too!
- Put a few maraschino cherries on your drink umbrella and add it to your sand pail along with a straw. Adding fruit to your shovel is completely optional but I couldn’t help myself.
Notes
The most important thing to know when making these bucket drinks is that EVERYTHING is customizable. You can switch out the alcohols, juices, fruits, and even the carbonated soda. As long as you stick with the measurements I give, your beach bucket cocktail will come out amazing.
Want to remember this? Post this Sand Bucket Cocktail recipe to your favorite Pinterest board!
Sharlene Habermeyer says
Okay, even though I don’t drink alcoholic beverages–this is the cutest idea I’ve ever seen and I’m going to alter your recipe a bit and use the sandbucket idea–it’s just too fun! Love this and so will my kids & grandkids–thank you! Plus–I always love your tutorials!
lakelifestateofmind@gmail.com says
These would be so fun for kids with just a mixture of different juices and fresh fruit. They’ll absolutely love it!
Chanell says
How many ounces does the sand bucket hold ?
lakelifestateofmind@gmail.com says
It’s roughly 30 fluid ounces 💕