Spiked Strawberry Lemonade Cocktail Recipe

It was the summer of 2010 and my new boyfriend, now husband, introduced me to his summer cocktail, the classic vodka lemonade. Eleven years later and I’m still a vodka lemonade fan, although I’ve stepped it up a notch, now making it from scratch. I present to you a spiked strawberry lemonade recipe.

Jump to my Spiked Strawberry Lemonade Cocktail Recipe

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Homemade Strawberry Lemonade Recipe

Lemonade also happens to be one of my mom’s favorite drinks so I grew up on this stuff. But as a typical child from the 80s with two working parents, making things from scratch was not what my mom was spending her free time doing. So the powdered drink mix was all I knew, and it was good. A little older, a little wiser, things are more convenient and I’ve learned how to make a strawberry lemonade from scratch that is quick and easy and I can control what goes into it.

The vodka gets added into the recipe separately so this is the perfect summer cocktail if you have non-drinkers in your group. The strawberry lemonade on its own is fantastic, organic where we can be but this isn’t the time to skimp on the sugar.

When I think about strawberry lemonade, I think about drinking it with someone (do people pour lemonade just for themselves?), so the recipe was developed to make a pitcher of strawberry lemonade. If you are wanting to only make one or two glasses then feel free to divide the recipe, but you’ll want a glass bottle to store the remaining strawberry simple syrup.

Enjoy!

Recommended Tools to Make Spiked Strawberry Lemonade

• Glass Pitcher | I used a mixing pitcher but I love this handled glass pitcher to make it easier to pour. And you might as well use glass to see the gorgeous cocktail.
• Fine Mesh Strainer | You’ll need a mesh strainer to make the strawberry simple syrup. You probably have one already, but if not this long handle version is useful.

Spiked Strawberry Lemonade Recipe

Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups organic sugar
• 4 1/2 cups water, divided
• 1 lb. organic strawberries
• 3 organic lemons
• 1 1/2 cups vodka
• Ice

Directions

1. Clean, hull, and cut strawberries in half
2. Add strawberries, sugar, and 1.5 cups of water to a saucepan and bring to a boil
3. While boiling, rough mash strawberries with the back of a wooden spoon (or you can use a potato masher)
4. Once strawberries are mashed, turn off the heat and let strawberries cool to room temperature and syrup to thicken; this will take about 25 minutes
5. Place a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl and pour the syrup through leaving the strawberry bits in the sieve
6. Fill the pitcher up about halfway with ice. Add remaining water, juice from the lemons (about 5 oz), strawberry simple syrup, and stir.
7. Add ice to drinking glasses, pour 2 oz of vodka, and top with strawberry lemonade

Tips:

• I like to save the strawberry bits to use in different things, strawberry bread being one of my favorite. Let me know in the comments if you’d like a recipe post for that.
• This strawberry simple syrup is a similar recipe to what is in the Strawberry Gimlet, but it’s a more robust strawberry flavor to stand up to the lemon. If you have some leftover feel free to use, but in all, you’ll want to have about 2 cups of strawberry simple syrup.
• If you don’t drink all the strawberry lemonade, transfer it to a glass bottle with lid and store it in the refrigerator for up to 5 days (do the sniff test to be certain though)

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More summer cocktail recipes to try:

• Pimm’s Cup
• Strawberry Mint Champagne Cocktail
• Frozen Mango Margarita

If you like lemon, make sure to check out my Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Lemon Loaf Recipe

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