I’ve been trying different lemonades. Prefer refrigerated versions to bottled shelf stable, canned or frozen, but open to suggestions!
Open to any type (regular, pink, strawberry, etc)
Simply Lemonade is decent. Minute Maid is decent. Not a fan of canned country style.
FarmBoy refrigerated is pretty good, as is the FarmBoy strawberry lemonade.
Rhabarberschorle from Fritz Kola.
Growing up I was always kinda partial to the Minute Maid cartons, but now-a-days I make my own. The recipe below is fantastic… and while it seems like a lot of work, you can do the peels and sugar ahead of time, and then it comes together pretty fast.
Before I posted, I had found these threads!
Great tutorial with Lava lamps and Drinky Bird decor! Thank you for sharing. 85° here today and I shudda made lemonade!
Rant
I am having a hard time finding decent refirgerated bottled lemonade and iced tea at variety stores and gas station stores lately.
Is this just an Ontario problem?
There are about 10 kinds of Mountain Dew and Coke, and several dozen energy drinks, a dozen electrolyte drinks, and virtually no choices when it comes to lemonade, and bottled iced tea with lemon. Also, hard to find bottled grape juice or cran grape at the variety stores around here lately.
I don’t dig canned iced tea or canned lemonade, and I don’t want my iced tea to be mango or blackberry flavoured. Most of the iced tea seems to be flavoured these days around here.
I found a glass bottled Italian tea at Fiesta Farms grocery store in Toronto that I like, that comes in lemon or peach flavours.
There is a newish iced tea made by Coke, called Fuse, which contains Splenda / sucralose. I don’t like the taste of Splenda/ Sucralose. I don’t mind unsweetened bottled iced tea, which I can’t find this summer, either.
You can easily make it yourself and it gives you much more flexibility to play around with flavors (and the sweetness as the commercial ones often have the same calorie count as cola)
I already make lemonade at home for drinking at home, from fresh lemons or bottled lemon juice.
I buy commercially prepared refrigerated lemonade or iced tea when I’m on the road or gardening. Or, I order iced passion tea lemonades at Starbucks drive thrus.
I’m not great at keeping track of my Thermos/ reusable cups, or being prepared enough to have 2 litres of chilled lemonade or iced tea made at home to take to the garden. It’s not the garden at my home. It’s a 30 minute drive away and I often garden for 3 hours at a time.
I recently purchased a new glass KeepCup . I have already misplaced it. Hence, my recent stops for cold drinks at the convenience stores over the past week.
Our daughter wanted to try something from Starbucks recently and so I order one of their lemonades (might have been the iced passion tea one) - it was a good reminder why I don’t like ordering anything from Starbucks - just a waste of calories
The iced passion tea lemonade is half passion tea which is a hibiscus tea, and half lemonade. A take on an Arnold Palmer.
I’m not crazy about their various feature lemonades each summer. Some have freeze dried fruit floating in them.
I’ve been ordering the half sweet passion tea lemonades since around 2008 or so.
I make my own unless I’m out and about too, but I can’t think of the last time I had a lemonade not at a restaurant. But from this late 2024 CH thread , it looks like Trader Joe’s fresh squeezed lemonade is a winner. If you have a TJ’s by you, maybe worth a try.
Trader Joe’s sells fresh squeezed lemonade that’s very good, tart…but the fresh squeezed nature means if you don’t drink it fast enough, it can start to turn to alcohol and the bottle blows up. It is good but have to plan on drinking. I think it’s $3.99. I usually mix 2/3 seltzer or mineral water to 1/3 lemonade. Simply brand is good and I buy it, but it’s owned by Coca Cola.
Unfortunately, the closest Trader Joe’s locations to me are in Buffalo. With the current ongoing high volume traffic situation on the highway between Toronto and Buffalo, that could be a 4 to 5 hour drive each way!
I discovered yesterday that our Canadian TJ knockoff, Farm Boy, makes a pretty good Blueberry Iced Tea and Lemon Iced Tea, in 591 ml glass bottle , that I like better than the current Nestea or other convenience store iced teas. It’s a bit cheaper, too. It’s made with cane sugar.
One of the refrigerated Strawberry Raspberry Lemonades in a large plastic jug at Farm Boy contains Stevia.
I tried this 473 ml plastic bottle single serving lemonade last year at Farm Boy and it was okay.
I think I saw a single serving glass bottle lemonade as I was leaving the store yesterday. I will take another look next time I visit.
Thanks! I will keep my eyes open for a Canadian equivalent.
