Red Robin's Freckled Lemonade

I'm a huge HUGE fan of trying out new drinks, and I recently read that, apparently, Red Robin has an AWESOME drink called Freckled Lemonade. It consists of your normal lemonade filled with crushed strawberries. The crazy thing is though, this drink is so famous that the diners go through about 420,000 GALLONS of it every year AND Food Network (FN) states that the drink is "so famous that [Red Robin] actually has a cocktail, a shake, cupcakes, and even a pie inspired by it". Red Robin, of course, won't give up the recipe, so what FN did was, create a replica of it in their own test kitchen!

Here's the recipe by FN called "Almost Famous Strawberry Lemonade" ---

What you will need: [makes 6 servings]

Zest of 1 lemon, in wide strips

2 cups sugar

2 cups chopped hulled strawberries

2 cups fresh lemon juice (from about 10 large lemons)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Make the lemon syrup: Bring the lemon zest, 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1 1/2 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan, stirring, until the sugar dissolves; let cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, make the strawberry syrup: Toss the strawberries and the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl and let sit at room temperature until the sugar dissolves, about 45 minutes. Strain the strawberry mixture; reserve the strawberry syrup and berries separately.

Make the lemonade: Combine the lemon juice, lemon syrup, salt and 2 cups cold water in a pitcher. For each drink, put about 1 tablespoon of the strawberry syrup in a tall glass. Fill with ice, then top with the lemonade and some of the reserved strawberries.

How amazingly perfect does this drink sound? ... It sounds WAY amazingly perfect because it pretty much is! I tried it out the other day when I had a few friends over and it was a HUGE hit! Some of us added the strawberries on top, and others didn't, but in either case, the strawberry syrup adds the perfect fruity flavor! Yum, yum, yum! ... My only criticism about this recipe is that it probably doesn't even need the salt, so next time, I won't be putting that in. But what I know is: with the summer here, this is going to probably be one of my favorite drinks for sure! Let me know if you try it out too!

The picture and recipe featured in this blog post were taken from foodnetwork.com.