These Spiked Frozen Lemonade with Blackberry & Mint cocktails are a refreshing way to keep cool this summer and enjoy an easy and homemade mixed drink. They can be whipped up in minutes if you make the concentrate beforehand so happy hour can become your new favorite time of day.
When I sit down and actually try to process the pandemic, it’s pretty bizarre to think that I haven’t traveled or gone more than 10 miles from my house in over 4 months (since the end of March). In contrast, within the two weeks leading up to the lockdown, I had been to New York City for work, traveled to Florida for a vacation, and also spent a weekend with friends in Indy. I’m not one to sit still so the idea that we haven’t done any trips within these past few months is very out of the norm for us.
With all this extra time at home instead of travelings, I’ve spent a lot of time discovering (or re-discovering) simple joys I wasn’t taking advantage of before because I was so ‘busy’ – long bike rides around the city, made from scratch cocktails, audiobooks, making beer bread, gardening, journaling, and long aimless walks with the dogs (to name a few). One of those simple joys, making from scratch cocktails, has turned into a weekly routine of me whipping up a batch of flavored simply syrup or homemade mixer and enjoying it with fizzy water and liquor of choice (which has been rotating between gin, vodka, and tequila lately). Now that it’s beyond humid and hot here, I’ve leveled up my cocktail game even more by creating frozen cocktails for Wyatt and I to keep cool with during happy hour which is how this Spiked Frozen Lemonade with Blackberries recipe was created.
What I love about this recipe is that you can make the lemonade concentrate ahead of time and store it in the fridge. That way it’s ready to go when cocktail hour rolls around and you are ready to blend up a few refreshing frozen lemonades. Also, I love the blackberry flavor in this lemonade but you could also make this with other seasonal fruit you have on hand (blueberries! peaches! cherries!) or skip the extra flavoring and enjoy these as straight up frozen lemonades.
These Spiked Frozen Lemonade with Blackberry & Mint cocktails are a refreshing way to keep cool this summer and enjoy an easy and homemade mixed drink. They can be whipped up in minutes if you make the concentrate beforehand so happy hour can become your new favorite time of day.
- 1 cup fresh or frozen blackberries
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from about 8 lemons)
- 2 1/2 cups water
- 12 oz gin or vodka
- ice
- mint for garnish
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Combine the blackberries, sugar, and 1 cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring often to try to dissolve the sugar. Once simmering, stir until the sugar is dissolved completely and remove from heat. Cover and let cool to room temperature.
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Once cooled, strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a sealable jar and discard the leftover blackberry pieces. Stir the lemon juice the syrup. Cover and store in the fridge for up to a week.
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To make all 8 cocktails at once: Transfer the lemonade concentrate, 2 1/2 cups water, and gin or vodka into a blender and fill with ice. Blend until all the ice is broken up and your blended drink in the consistency you'd like it and divide between 8 glasses. Top with mint and drink right away.
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To make 1 cocktail: Combine equal parts of lemonade concentrate and water in a blender, add in 1.5 ounces of gin or vodka, and fill with ice. Blend until all the ice is broken up and your blended drink in the consistency you'd like it. Top with mint and drink right away.
Make sure to tag Vegetarian ‘Ventures on Instagram and use #vegetarianventures when trying this dish out!
1 Comment
marquis | realrawkitchen
Beautiful pictures as always, Shelly 😍 love that you can make this ahead of time.. I think I’ll make some tonight to pair with vodka 😋