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Photo by Kevin Anderson

The Passion Potion costs $4 at Johnny's Tavern, 13410 W. 62nd Terrace. A non-alcholic version is available for $1.75.

Summer time for many means kicking back with an ice-cold beverage. Here are some drinks special to Shawnee.

Summer Italiano Margarita

Gail Hilton, manager and bartender at Famous Sam's Sport Grill, noticed the bar's frozen strawberry daiquiri wasn't selling, so she and another bartender, Jenni Gray, decided to come up with something better.

"It's called the Summer Italiano Margarita," Hilton said. "Normally a margarita is made with tequila and triple sec, but in this one instead of triple sec you use amaretto."

Hilton and Gray created the greenish-blue colored beverage over a weekend, but they didn't get it right the first time.

"The first time we made it, it was gross so we added the orange juice and the amaretto to it," she said.

On their second try, the ladies got it right. The Summer Italiano Margarita includes tequila, amaretto, Blue Curacao, orange juice, sweet and sour and a little bit of triple sec. The drink is served frozen in a martini glass and garnished with an orange slice, a cherry and a sugar on the rim.

"It tastes like a sweet summer drink," Hilton said.

Bartenders at Famous Sam's also created the Godfather Shot, which includes vanilla vodka, amaretto, pineapple juice and Go Fast Energy Drink.

Hilton said she also created a shot she didn't have a name for, but a customer dubbed it an Alligator Bite because of its green hue. It includes Bacardi 151 Rum, melon, Malibu rum and a layer of Jagermeister on top.

Passion Potion.

Lauren Havens, manager and bartender at Johnny's Tavern, said making up drinks is something she does all the time.

"I do it on a daily basis really," she said. "Somebody comes in and says 'Oh I don't know what I want.' I say, 'Well what do you like?' Then I make little adaptations."

So when Johnny's got in a new passion fruit-flavored vodka, it wasn't unusual that Havens played around and developed the Passion Potion.

"Flavored vodkas are really, really popular right now, especially since there is so much to choose from," she said. "We kind of go from that and mess around with whatever we have."

The drink includes passion fruit vodka, Sprite, cranberry juice, orange juice and pineapple juice. It's served in a tall glass garnished with an orange slice and a cherry.

"It's got a light grapefruit taste to it," Havens said. "It's just like a fruit cocktail basically."

Killer Whale Cocktail

When owners of a car wash create a signature drink, it confuses people, Kathleen Whalen said.

"Many of the (Shawnee) Chamber members thought that the Whale Spout was a bar in western Shawnee," said Whalen, who is co-owner of the Whale Spout Car Wash along with her husband, Stephen Whalen.

The drink, which has become a Shawnee signature drink, was first created more than three years ago for the Moonlight Golf Tournament, which raises money for Shawnee Parks and Recreation's scholarship fund.

"My husband thought it would be fun to create a signature martini or a signature cocktail to match up with our mascot, the killer whale," Kathleen Whalen said.

Though it's not served at the car wash, Whalen is happy to share the recipe. It's also included in Shawnee's Sesquicentennial cookbook.

The Killer Whale Cocktail includes a 12-ounce can of frozen lemonade concentrate, 12 ounces of premium vodka, 6 ounces of Blue Curacao, 36 ounces of water, two to three sliced lemons and four to six ice cubes.

This recipe makes eight 8-ounce servings or one giant serving, Whalen said.