Who doesn’t love a frosty glass of lemonade? Let’s face it, though. Most of the time that frosty glass of goodness is coming from a bottle or a dry mix. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, if you want to improve the flavor or create a delicious drink for guests, you can doctor store bought lemonade. Whether it’s with juice or fresh herbs, you won’t believe how good store bought lemonade can taste.
5 Ways to Make Store Bought Lemonade Taste Gourmet!
Fruit Juice
One of the easiest and most delicious ways to doctor store bought lemonade is to mix it with fruit juice. You want to choose a 100% fruit juice and there are so many great flavors to choose from. A great mix is to combine equal parts of lemonade with blackberry juice. It’s sweet. It’s tangy. And, the flavor has depth. Your guests will never know you used two store bought products to make this delicious drink.
Sweet Tea
If you like sweet tea, you’ve got to try the classic sweet tea mixed with equal parts lemonade. Do yourself a favor and make the sweet tea from scratch. Bottled teas never taste fresh and can ruin the flavor of your drink. Be sure to hold back on the sugar a bit because the lemonade will add additional sweetness.
Fresh Fruit
If you have some fruit that needs to be used up, puree it with sugar and mix it in with your lemonade. You might use strawberries, blackberries, watermelon, or any other seasonal fruit that you love. A number of fruits taste great mixed with lemonade. We love to drop chunks or slices of fruit right into the pitcher of lemonade. The longer they sit in the lemonade, the more the flavors of the fruit seep into the drink. Our two favorites are watermelon and strawberry! And don’t forget that you can add extra lemon slices (which make the lemonade *look* homemade, too. Shh! Don’t tell!).
Drink Mixes
Sweetened drink mixes are a great addition to store bought lemonade that kids will love. If your kids love the old-school cherry flavor, they’ll love cherry Kool-Aid mixed with lemonade. You could also do a blue raspberry lemonade. Just have fun with it and get creative with the flavors. Another trick that we love: add drink mixes that are found near the alcohol (think pina colada lemonade…yum!). You can also use flavored syrups.
Herbs
Last, but not least, if you want something that will wow your guests, try adding fresh herbs to your lemonade. You can add crushed rosemary, mint, or even lavender. This will turn your store bought lemonade into a gourmet drink.
Bonus tip: we’ve found (through careful study!) that lemonade really does taste better with lots and lots of ice. I typically like to dilute my lemonade a bit, and ice cubes do that perfectly.
There’s nothing at all wrong with buying store bought lemonade, but you’ll love how you can improve the flavor by adding your own ingredients. Whether it’s fresh fruit or a drink mix, you can completely change the flavor into something you’ll love.
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I love drinking lemonade. My favorite is to mix iced tea and lemonade together. These are some great ideas!
When I read the title my first thought was to add more sugar. LoL. You have some nice ideas here. Thanks for sharing at Merry Monday. I like a lot of ice in my lemonade too.
My son loves bitter stuff, and he likes his lemonade right out of the package or homemade and tart as every. He even drinks lemon water really strong. I like my lemonade doctored up with fruit juice and lots of ice! These are great ways to make store bought lemonade taste better!