Fresh Cherry Limeade

Here’s a new version of cherry lemonade! Make this glass-friendly drink a crowd pleaser, and you can customize the flavors to suit your taste.

Here’s a new take on a classic drink: cherry lemonade! Cherry and lime go together and are the perfect combination for summer drinks to beat the heat. We have two versions of this drink for every taste. The base version of this recipe is a grown-up take on the classic Sonic, bubbly and just sweet enough. But you want the more classic version? Double the cherry and prepare with Sprite. The best part? Filled with cocktail cherries and lime wedges, it’s the most celebratory drink ever. (You might want to jump straight to the recipe.)

Ingredients for cherry lemonade

Looking for Sonic’s Cherry Lemonade? This concoction is filled with sugar and made from Sprite. This recipe can mimic those nostalgic flavors. But you want a fresh and healthy cherry lemonade with less sugar and just as refreshing? We have that too. You will need the following for both versions:

• Homemade lemonade: This fresh lemonade is the stuff dreams are made of. It’s packed with the best spicy flavor and is quick and easy to put together. (No stovetop heating required.)
• Maraschino Juice: That is, the juice contained in a box of maraschino cherries. (NOT maraschino liqueur, that’s something else entirely.)
• Sparkling water or lemonade: The adult version of this drink uses carbonated water that contains no sweetener. Or you can use lemonade (read: sprite) for the nostalgic classic version.

How to make cherry lemonade…for a crowd

The main way to make this cherry lemonade is to make a large pitcher of homemade lemonade. Then you can pour glasses with lime and maraschino juice and top up with soda. Here’s what you should know about making a pitcher of lemonade:

• Squeeze limes. This is the part of the process that takes the longest…by far! A juicer makes it quick to get 1 ¼ cups of lime juice: This is the juicer we use.
• Mix sugar with lukewarm water, then add cold water. Mix 1 cup sugar and warm water until dissolved. Mix it with 7 cups of cold water and you have lemonade!
• Make any drink! Each glass contains ¾ cup lemonade, 1 tablespoon maraschino juice, and 2 tablespoons sparkling water or Sprite. Another option: just stir the maraschino into the lemonade pitcher (use ¾ cup).

Using Sparkling Water vs Sprite

To make the healthy “grown-up” version of the less-sweet cherry lemonade: Use sparkling water! It has no artificial sweeteners or flavors. We used sparkling water from our soda stream, but you can use store-bought club soda or even lime- or La Croix-flavored sparkling water (it’s unsweetened).

But if you’re looking for those nostalgic Sonic flavors, you can use Sprite! That’s what Sonic uses in their concoction. You should also double the maraschino juice for a sweeter cherry lemonade.

Cherry lemonade in the glass

Just want to make a glass of cherry lemonade? Sometimes you don’t want to have to do a whole pitcher. (Then you can get away with just 1 lime!) Here are the steps to making cherry lemonade in a jar:

• Individual portion of lemonade: Squeeze 2 tablespoons of lime juice (1 lime) into a glass. Add 1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar and 1 ½ tablespoons warm water and stir until dissolved. Pour ¾ cup of cold water.
• Add cherry and sparkling water. Fill the glass as you like!

And that’s it! Make this fresh cherry lemonade to stay cool all summer long. Let us know if you like the sane version or the nostalgic version in the comments below.

More refreshing summer drinks

Here are some other summer drinks that are perfect for beating the heat!

• Fresh lemonade or sparkling lemonade How to make the best lemonade recipe from freshly squeezed lemons! The use of real citrus results in an exceptionally sweet cake taste.
• Lemonade Slushie This Lemonade Slushie is icy and tangy: drink it neat or add gin for a kick!
• Pimm’s Cup Refreshing and sparkling with Pimm’s No. 1 and sparkling lemonade!
• Iced Hot Chocolate Running out of hot chocolate when it’s hot outside? Solution: FROZEN hot chocolate! It’s an ice-cold version of the drink that’s out of this world.

Want more lime recipes? Go to 15 Zingy Lime Recipes.

This fresh cherry lemonade is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free and gluten-free.