Sparkling Raspberry Lemonade

This sparkling raspberry lemonade is a summer favorite refresher in our house. We live in Florida and luckily our winters are short, but summers can be brutal with heat and humidity. There’s nothing more refreshing than this sparkling raspberry lemonade made with fresh raspberries and lemons:).

It’s no secret that I love to host friends and family in our house. Refreshing drinks with real fruits are such a popular choice for backyard BBQs, summer get togethers or even pool days. You can. check out my strawberry limeade, tamarind agua fresca or pineapple passion fruit refresher for additional options on what to serve your guests:).

Ingredients

So let’s talk ingredients. I love making drinks (both mocktails and cocktails) with real fruits instead of syrups. There’s something about the fresh flavors that is hard to replicate!

• raspberries – two packages of fresh raspberries (usually 6 ozs per package).
• lemons – I love using the big lemons that look like Sicilian lemons. I tend to use about 5 of these big lemons which yields approximately 1.25 cups of juice.
• water – I use about 2 cups of cold water to blend the raspberries with.
• ice – add as needed in the pitcher as well as when serving the lemonade.
• lemon-lime soda (feel free to pick the brand and diet or no diet according to taste). At the time of writing this post, I have two brands available in my local grocery store: Fresca and Starry.
• mint leaves – use as desired for garnish

Let’s make lemonade:)

So after I rinse and drain the raspberries, I blend them with cold water. Then I strain the blend so the mesh catches any raspberry seeds.

Add the raspberry juice on the pitcher with ice.

Squeeze the lemons and add the fresh lemon juice to the pitcher. I usually use about 5 oversized lemons which yields about 1.25 cups of fresh lemon juice.

Pro-Tip – bottled lemon juice lacks the freshness and flavor that fresh lemons give this lemonade. Squeeze fresh lemons for this recipe, you won’t regret it as it makes a big difference in taste!

Mix and store in the refrigerator so it chills. When ready to serve, I add lemon lime soda until the pitcher is full. Serve over ice and garnish with mint leaves.

Lemon-lime soda vs simple syrup

As you can see in my strawberry limeade recipe, I made a lime flavored simple syrup which I later added over the strained strawberry juice to sweeten the limeade. In this case, I am using a lemon lime soda to sweeten the lemonade but also to make it sparkling.

So usually if I’m making a regular lemonade (not sparkling), I tend to favor the simple syrup since it dissolved the cane sugar better and it’s easy to incorporate in the lemonade.

However, if I’m making a sparkling lemonade (or limeade), I tend to use a lemon lime soda (either diet or regular) to not only sweeten the lemonade but also add bubbles.

Feel free to try both and pick your favorite. You can’t really go wrong, it’s mainly a matter of preference.

Time saving tip – if you want to make the simple syrup for either the limeade or lemonade, feel free to make it the night before and refrigerate it for when you need it.

If you would like to save this recipe for later, please pin one of the pictures from this article to your boards in Pinterest so you can easily retrieve this recipe in the future. Let me know in comments if you made this recipe or have one of your own:). I love connecting with my readers. Thank you for reading my blog!!

Additional Drink Recipes

I have many drink recipes in my blog, refreshers, coffees and cocktails. Here’s a small sample of these recipes, but feel free to look around my drinks category to find out more!

• Shaken Hazelnut Espresso with Oat Milk
• Frozen Watermelon Margarita
• Elderflower cocktail