Mixed Drinks Monday: sparkling lemonade & skinny pina colada

Most weeks the drinks I choose to make are ones with ingredients all ready in my cupboard.  That means a lot of coconut rum for one thing and a lot of fairly basic drinks for another.  About halfway through summer and this project has led to some fun discoveries and some ehhhh moments.  But it's always interesting trying something new that are worth some ehhh for the good ones.

Sparkling Lemonade with Berry Ice
Yield: 3-4 servings

Ingredients:
For the ice cubes
water
assorted fruit

For the sparkling lemonade
1 1/2 cups lemon juice*
3/4 cups sugar
2-3 cups sparkling water

Directions:
1) (I feel really silly writing instructions for making ice cubes.)  Cut fruit to fit in your ice cube trays, top with water and freeze.
2) Combine the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved.  Transfer to a pitcher or large measuring cup and store in the fridge until ready to serve.
3) Add 2 cups of sparkling water to the pitcher, stir, taste test, adding the last cup if needed  (I added).  Serve in glasses with the berry ice.

I thought the initial taste was a bit tart, before adding the additional 1 cup of sparkling water.  I enjoyed it but it also took me about 6 hours to finish my glass (I kept getting distracted by Luke for one thing).   Matt finished his much quicker.  I think I prefer the strawberry lemonade from last week more but this one was fine.  Good to have a homemade lemonade option.

*Obviously freshly squeezed is always going to be better but since lemons are around $0.50 each I wasn't about to sink $6-7 just in lemons for this.  I used bottled juice. 

Skinny Pina Colada
You may have noticed that a lot of these alcohol drinks are consumed at the lake.  That's kinda a big part of summer lake life.  You may also notice the brown pile recurring in many of these pictures...that's the leaves we raked last fall but were too wet to burn at the time and every time we've tried since.  Some neighbors thought it was mulch and we're not going to correct them.   We keep it as classy as possible up there. 

Ingredients:
2 oz coconut rum
3 oz pineapple juice
5 oz coconut water

Directions:
Add ice to a glass.  Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake.  Pour over ice in glass.

The fact that one of the ingredients is water should have been a clue but I found this one pretty weak and watered down.  I didn't even bother making a second, just mixed some rum with the leftover 3oz of pineapple juice.  Then used some of the coconut water to make another strawberry coconut margarita when we got home.  That is definitely a better use of coconut water.

Sparkling Lemonade with Berry Ice
Skinny Pina Colada

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In the summer I aim to make a new drink every week and share them all here, good or bad!  See them all in chronological order by following the "Mixed Drink Monday" tag here or check out my favorites by scrolling down to "Mixed Drink Monday" on my recipes page!