Lemonade is a summertime must around here, and I love finding new recipes every year. My favorite has been lemonade with mint leaves, so I was really intrigued when I found this Kentucky Lemonade recipe. It’s lemonade with mint and another favorite beverage of mine: bourbon. That got my attention, and I’m hoping it will be as good as I imagine. Let’s find out!
Sweet, tart, and refreshing with a bourbon kick, this Kentucky lemonade cocktail is everything you could want in a drink. Sip your way into warmer weather with this easy to make cocktail… perfect for a party!
The Ingredients
There are a handful of ingredients for this recipe, but nothing too unusual. I was a little surprised by the ginger ale, but I went with it. The rest was exactly what you think lemonade would have: lemons, sugar, and mint. And water, of course, but I didn’t have to shop for that.
Now, I would normally use plain old granulated sugar, but I happened to have a bag of organic cane sugar in the pantry. I used it instead because it’s prettier. It has a sparkly quality that’s really pretty when you use it to rim your glasses.
The Process
Making Kentucky Lemonade was just like making regular lemonade. Make a lemon-sugar concentrate, add ginger ale instead of water to dilute it, and serve over ice. Here’s how my time was spent:
- 11 minutes to make the lemonade
- 3 minutes to make the cocktails & garnishes
- 14 minutes total
I started out by slowly simmering the water and sugar in a saucepan. I gave it a stir now and then while I juiced the lemons. This recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of lemon juice from about 6 lemons. I bought 7 lemons so I would have enough for juice and a garnish. Unfortunately, I juiced all 7 lemons and only got 3/4 cup of juice.
All was not lost, though, because I had some lemon juice frozen into ice cubes in the freezer. Tip: Freezing extra citrus juice in an ice cube tray is a great way to keep it from going to waste. I just popped a few lemon ice cubes into the lemon juice to bring it up to 1 1/2 cups and continued with the recipe.
After the sugar dissolved in the water, I took it off the heat and added the lemon juice and mint leaves. BTW, I left the leaves whole, but cutting them up would release more of the mint flavor if that’s your preference.
I strained the mixture into a large pitcher after a few minutes and added 2/3 cup of bourbon. Then I slowly poured in 6 cups of cold ginger ale, and my Kentucky Lemonade was ready to try.
