Spiked Strawberry Lemonade

With from-scratch strawberry sauce, homemade lemonade, and the liquor of your choice, Spiked Strawberry Lemonade is the perfect drink to cool down with this summer.

I don’t drink much alcohol. As I often tell people, I’ve spent much of my nine legal drinking years pregnant, broke, or both. Neither condition is conducive to cocktails, so I haven’t done the recipe experimentation a lot of my foodie friends have.

I got to dabble in cocktail creation during our recent trip to Oregon. I still had some ideas floating around when we returned home, but instead of my mom’s stocked liquor cabinet, I had one lonely half-bottle of below average vodka in the freezer from that one time I made homemade vanilla extract. There was also a carton of gorgeous strawberries in the refrigerator, so this Spiked Strawberry Lemonade was born.

Spiked Strawberry Lemonade

Ingredients

For the Strawberry Sauce

1 lb. strawberries, diced
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Lemonade

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
2 cups lemon juice
1 cup vodka or liquor of choice

Instructions

Begin by making the strawberry sauce: combine the berries, water, sugar, and vanilla in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, for five minutes. Allow berries to cool before pureeing them; do this with a blender (I use my Ninja or an immersion blender) or by pushing them through a fine mesh strainer. Store strawberry sauce in the fridge until ready for use.

Next, make a simple syrup by combining the sugar and the water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Stir the mixture as it comes to a boil, dissolving the sugar. Turn off the heat when the syrup boils and set it aside to cool. Store your simple syrup in the fridge until you’re ready to mix up your lemonade.

You’ll need a large glass pitcher to make your spiked strawberry lemonade. Stir together twp cups of simple syrup, two cups of lemon juice, 1 cup of strawberry sauce, and one cup of vodka or other liquor. Serve over ice.

Notes

You can totally make individual servings! Just prepare the strawberry sauce and the simple syrup as instructed and then combine: 1 part strawberry sauce, 2 parts simple syrup, 2 parts lemon juice, and 1 part liquor.

I almost always use bottled lemon juice for my homemade lemonade. I know it’s a total foodie no-no, but I just don’t find fresh-squeezed juice to be worth the time, the money, and the effort.

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