Peach Lemonade
This fruity and refreshing peach lemonade is the perfect summer drink. This recipe can be adapted to serve a crowd, and you can even turn this into a fruity summer pitcher cocktail.
I’m no stranger to homemade summer drinks. We are not soda drinkers and, besides water, our drinks of choice are coffee and cocktails. So when the opportunity arises (ahem, summer), I love making fruity drinks that we can share when friends come over for cookouts. My childhood drink of choice was anything that came in a pouch with a straw. So homemade drinks are sort of my grown-up, tastier versions of those.
Fruit and citrus is pretty much a given successful combo for summertime drinks, and this lemonade is no different. I love my vanilla bean lemonade, but it’s always nice to have a few drink options for this time of year. This version uses peach infused simple syrup, and it gives the lemonade a beautiful peachy hue and a big boost of peach flavor. Like I did with this peach Old Fashioned, I added mint leaves because I love the way they taste with peaches. Of course, if you want to add some bourbon to this, I won’t judge you.
We have an abundance of peaches from picking, even after making peach vanilla bean jam. So I’m definitely planning to keep a pitcher of this in the refrigerator until summer ends.
- YIELD: 8 drinks
4 cups water
2 cups coarsely chopped peaches
¾ cup sugar
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 peach, pitted and cut into 8 wedges
Bourbon, optional
Mint leaves, optional
This recipe is easily doubled, and I recommend doing so to serve a crowd.
- 1
Combine the peaches, sugar and water in a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.
Allow peach mixture to cool slightly, then use an immersion blender to blend until smooth. Alternately, you can place the peach mixture in a blender, using a kitchen towel to cover the center of the blender lid, and blend that way. Refrigerate the peach mixture for at least 3 hours.
- 2
Once the peach mixture has cooled, press it through a fine mesh strainer set over a pitcher. Discard solids. Stir in lemon juice. Serve over ice, stirring in bourbon as wanted and using a peach wedge and mint leaves to garnish each glass, if desired.
Sweet glory I bet this is amazing! I made a peach mango smoothie once and it was fantastically delicious so now I must try this,.
Good thing I have a gazillion peaches in my fruit bowl because I’m pretty sure I won’t be happy if I can’t have a glass of this when I get home from work tomorrow!