Strawberry Lemonade Cocktail: A VERY Versatile Drink

Up until recently I really haven’t done much with strawberries in cocktails.

Maybe it was a little PTSD from a few too many of those horrible sugary strawberry daiquiris back in my early 20s…

But recently, I started experimenting with them more all thanks to one simple cocktail: the Strawberry Fix from the Regarding Cocktails book.

I was surprised how easy (and delicious) it was to incorporate strawberries into your drinks.

So I started using them more often.

In doing that I’ve found that unsurprisingly, one of the very best uses for them is in a strawberry lemonade cocktail.

Now I’ve never made lemonade on my own in the traditional since, but this is rather the cocktail equivalent of it.

What I love about this drink is how flexible and versatile it is.

For one, let’s say I want an alcoholic cocktail but my wife isn’t drinking that day? This is the ultimate mocktail. It looks and feels like an actual fancy drink, but doesn’t have the booze.

And all you have to do is add 2 oz of a spirit of your choice, and you’ve got a great cocktail as well!

Seriously vodka, gin, tequila, mezcal, whiskey – you can add any of these to this strawberry lemonade recipe and it’ll taste great.

How to Make Your Own Strawberry Lemonade Cocktail

This has been a go to all summer for me for the reasons I listed above. I’ve made it every which way depending on what people want.

So I’ll share the base here, and then the only thing that changes is the spirit.

One thing I’d recommend doing is tasting the strawberries beforehand to see how tart they are. If they’re a little bit more ripe and sweeter, you might adjust the amount of simple syrup you use accordingly.

• Quarter two strawberries. Add Collins Glass
• Muddle strawberries until jam like
• Add 1oz of fresh lemon juice
• Add 3/4 oz of simple syrup
• Fill glass with ice
• Top with club soda (4-6oz)

And that’s all you have to do. A very fresh, very tasty, very delicious summer mocktail. You can make it an even fancier mocktail by adding 2oz of Seedlip Garden or Grove to make a slightly more complex drink.

Or sometimes I’ll muddle two fresh basil leaves in there as well if I’m feeling extra fancy (usually I’ll then scoop them out to avoid slurping up a big basil leaf.)

Then if you want to make it a proper cocktail simply add 2oz of a spirit of your choice, as mentioned above. I’ve literally done this with half a dozen different spirits, and they all taste fantastic.

You can also just 3x or 4x the recipe above and use that base to then make drinks more easily if you’re serving a group of people.