Frozen Mint Lemonade

The obnoxiously hot summer weather has been inspiring me to dream up cold and classy concoctions that won’t empty my bank account. Yes, I know a lot of you live for hot weather, but I would personally take snow over 99 degree weather anyway. But, whatever floats your boat.

Yesterday I was mindlessly wandering around the grocery store (as I often do) when my eye caught a half gallon bottle of Simply Lemonade. Now I have to tell you, I never EVER drink lemonade. Like, ever. But for some reason, the idea of a clean, crisp, cold, citrus drink just sounded really good to me. Maybe the heat is effecting my brain… and apparently making me crave citrus… Anyway, I didn’t want “just” lemonade, I wanted something a bit more substantial. Something with a bit more pizzazz.

I knew I wanted to make it frozen, but throwing juice in a blender with ice cubes just doesn’t really do it for me. The blender I own (a Magic Bullet, thank you very much) is nowhere near powerful enough to adequately pulverize ice to make a homogenous frozen beverage. In fact I would venture to say most home blenders aren’t powerful enough to do that. And you know, even if they were, all it’s going to do in the end is water the drink down. Who wants that? Yes, one could make ice cubes out of the lemonade, but I didn’t really feel like waiting for them to freeze. So, to substitute ice I grabbed a pint of lemon sorbet. Good frozen texture with the taste of lemon built in. Delish.

Now one could easily just blend the lemonade with the sorbet and call it a day. But the starving artist wants to take it a step further. It needs something to give it an extra punch – a totally unique twist: fresh mint. I love fresh mint in any form, particularly in my ice tea. If you’ve never tried it, do it. It adds such an incredible effervescence. Blending it into frozen lemonade makes it a truly heavenly summer drink.

To make it, start with 2 scoops of sorbet, 1 cup of lemonade, and about 6 leaves of mint. I also added in a secret ingredient: I scoop of cool whip. Totally optional, but kind of fun. Makes it kind of like a “lemon julius”. Blend it up really good and see how it is. Too thick, add some more juice. Too thin, more sorbet. So. Effing. Amazing.

Here are some ideas to shake it up even more:

• Add a few drops of vanilla to make a sort of “lemon julius”
• Add a handful of fresh or frozen raspberries or blueberries
• Add a shot (or two) of vodka, perhaps some Absolut Citron, for a lovely adult beverage for your next summer party
• Instead of lemonade and lemon sorbet, try orange juice and orange sherbet, or perhaps some