Gin And Lemonade: The London Lemonade

Looking for a perfect Summer sipper? You can’t go wrong with a little spiked Lemonade, can you? Let’s learn how to make ourselves a London Lemonade aka Gin and Lemonade!

What is a Gin and Lemonade?

A Gin and Lemonade, also known as a London Lemonade, is, just as the name implies, a Lemonade based cocktail. The essential ingredients are Gin and lemonade; homemade or store bought.

Why Lemonade?

Lemonade is one of those mixers, like soda (Coke, Sprite, etc) or orange juice, that, by nature, blends amazingly well with just about any spirit (except cream based unless you want a glass of curdled nastiness). You may have noticed that many cocktails are often paired with a wedge of lemon.

Lemonade works so well because it takes the sour citrus taste and smooths it out with sugar or simple syrup. Once you add that to your drink, the taste is out of this world! The best part is you don’t have to just have it with gin. You can make this cocktail with Vodka, Rum, Tequila, and Whiskey. Not to mention the whole host of other cocktail with Lemonade as an ingredient.

Depending on how crafty you’re feeling, you can use store bought lemonade or you can make your own. We prefer to make our own so that we have more control over the sweet and sour ratio, but store bought also works great. If you don’t want to make a whole pitcher or buy lemonade, you can also make a small amount in the drink itself. We’ll cover that in the recipe below.

Speaking of the recipe, let’s get to it!

How to make this drink:

This is another super simple cocktail. The name is a Gin and Lemonade so it’s pretty self explanatory.

Step 1

Pull out a highball glass and stick it in the freezer. Now fill a mixing tumbler with ice.

Step 2

Add in 1 ½ oz of a high quality gin (2 oz of gin if you’re using premixed lemonade; store bought or homemade)

If using store bought or homemade from a pitcher, skip to Step 3b.

Step 3

Add in 2 oz of Simple Syrup and 2 oz of lemon juice.

Step 3b

Top off your glass with 4 oz of Lemonade

Step 4

Tumble your drink from the mixer into a chilled highball glass (or make everything in the glass and stir with a bar spoon)

Step 5

Add a Lemon wedge garnish (or lime wedge if you’re feeling froggy) and enjoy!

Alternative Versions

There are a few variations of this recipe that each have their own, unique flavors and features.

Gin Fizz Lemonade

This one is pretty simple. Make a London Lemonade (2 oz gin, 1 oz simple syrup, 1 oz lemon juice) and top it off with 1 oz of Club Soda. It’s not a lot but give it just a bit of bubbly perfection.

Gin Lemonade Mojito

This one is even easier! Make the London Lemonade but muddle in anywhere from 5-15 mint leaves (depending on how strong you like your mint flavor) in your tumbler prior to mixing. Add a stick of raw sugar cane for authenticity.

Recipe

For more great cocktails

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