Cocktails with Lemonade
Lemonade is a sweetened lemon drink of lemon juice or lemon flavouring, sugar and water, made either still and cloudy or clear and carbonated depending on region.
Taste profile
Sweet and tart in balance, with a pronounced fresh-lemon aroma; the carbonated form adds a fizzy lift, while the still form sits fuller and rounder.
How it's used
Poured in a long measure to top and lengthen a drink, it makes up most of the glass and supplies both sweetness and citrus acidity at once; built over ice rather than shaken, especially in its carbonated form.
Substitutes for Lemonade
As a small splash it is loosely swappable; as a bulk mixer it is not, and a stand-in must rebuild the lemon flavour and sweet-tart balance from fresh lemon juice (or citric acid) plus simple syrup, matching effervescence with soda when the clear carbonated type is intended.
Often confused with
Lemon-lime soda is always a carbonated soft drink flavoured with both lemon and lime; lemonade is lemon-only and, outside British and Australian usage, is often still rather than fizzy.
