Adult Lemonade Stand: make their own flavoured lemonade with fresh fruit purees, sparkling water, or soda, and vodka. Sure to impress your guests.
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Our adult lemonade stand is perfect for a party. Your guests will love to help themselves at this adult lemonade stand with fresh fruit purees, sparkling water or soda and alcohol.
We had a little get together on the weekend with some friends. I thought it would be fun to have a lemonade stand buffet/bar for everyone. It was a great success, and the lemonade was really yummy. We love this idea for any get together. It would be a fun addition to a summer birthday party, barbeque, wedding or baby shower.
One of the things we really love about this lemonade stand bar is that guests can help themselves throughout the party. It's always great to offer guests their first drink and share all the great options. Then welcome to help themselves to replenish their drink. Keep an eye on things and make sure the ingredients or glasses don't need to be replenished throughout the party.
Lemonade Stand Set Up
We set it up in the backyard, where we were all hanging out, against our back fence. I used a card table, and leaned my chalkboard against the fence. On the chalkboard I wrote a few simple instructions. Guests were invited to help themselves to some lemonade, add a fruit puree if they liked, and top it off with some bubbles and the option of vodka. It's such a great idea to have some simple instructions so guests know exactly what to do. We used a chalkboard for our instructions. The chalkboard is made out of an old picture frame and has lots of character. You could also make a sign on paper and place it in a pretty picture frame for the party. On the top of our frame we added some simple butterfly bunting. This was used as party decor in other places too and looked great. And there's some pretty pink pompom garland added with it.
We set everything up on a card table, covered in a white table cloth. Andy small table would work well. Then we topped it with a pretty floral table runner made from vintage fabric that matched the ones used in our seating table. It was a great way to add a little color and pattern to the table. We also added a small pot of miniature roses, for a little floral touch. Cut flowers would be a great choice too.
If you wanted things to look more like a traditional market stand you could use 4 poles, one at each corner of the table, like bamboo garden stakes, and then drape some fabric and bunting across them to look like a real lemonade business.
The Adult Lemonade Stand
- lemonade
- fresh fruit purees
- sparkling water
- ginger ale or sprite soda pop
- vodka
Lemonade
Lemonade is the perfect summer drink. It's that perfect combination of sweet, and tart. It makes the most refreshing treat, especially on a hot summer day. It's traditionally made from fresh lemon juice, water and sugar. To make sure the sugar is fully dissolved if you're making it from scratch, it's often made with a simple sugar syrup. To make simple syrup combine equal parts of water and regular white sugar, and boil until the sugar is fully dissolved. Be sure to cool it completely before using in drinks. To make your lemonade just combine your freshly squeezed lemon juice with water and the simple syrup. You can adjust the tartness or sweetness by adding more or less lemon juice and simple syrup. Be sure to store in the refrigerator until your ready to set up your lemonade stand.
I made some really easy frozen lemonade. You could also use a good lemonade from a carton, or use a lemonade recipe to make your own. Pink lemonade would be a fun option too. We served the lemonade in a large punch bowl, with some large lemons used to add some lemon slices. We also added ice to our punch bowl, but another option is to have a container of ice cubes at your lemonade stand so guests can help themselves and you don't have to worry about the ice cubes melting and diluting the lemonade over the course of an afternoon or evening.
A drink dispenser would be a great option for serving the lemonade also. Lemonade can sometimes attract bees if set up outside, and drink dispenser can be a helpful way to keep them at bay. You can also try burning a citronella candle to help keep them at bay.
How To Make The Fresh Fruit Purees
The thing that really takes this lemonade stand to the next level is the fresh fruit purees. This is such a great way for guests to customize their lemonade. We found our guests loved trying all the different flavors and mixing them for great personalized flavors.
We made the fruit purees the night before, and served them in pretty recycled bottles. You could also look for glass bottles with stoppers like this at dollar tree. I love how they turned out and they were so delicious. I made some different tags as the labels so everyone knew exactly what we had available.
We made
- strawberry
- raspberry
- blueberry
To make the purees, I added about a pint of berries to the blender, added a cup of water, and a tablespoon or two of powdered sugar. You can adjust the sugar depending on how sweet the berries are.
I pureed everything until the mixture was smooth.
Next I poured the puree through a fine wire sieve to remove any seeds.
I used a funnel to pour it into the bottles and attached the labels to the bottles. Store these in the fridge.
If you have any purees leftover after your party, you can pour them into ice cube trays and freeze them. Store them in the freezer in a ziplock bag and then add them to your lemonade anytime.
Guests were able to add one of the puree flavours to their lemonade, or combine two or three to create a mixed berry lemonade flavor.
Add Some Fizz
We also offered some ginger ale, or sparkling mineral water to top up the lemonade if anyone wanted to add some bubbles.
Alcoholic Option
To make this a grown up lemonade stand it is fun to offer vodka for the adults to add to their lemonade as well. Have the vodka available with a shot glass for easy measuring. One of the great things about this setup is that it's easy for guests to choose an alcohol or non-alcohol option and make this as strong or weak of a cocktail as they like.
Serving Glasses
We served it all up in simple mason jars, with pretty striped straws with some book page butterflies. You could also use regular glasses for serving.
It was great to get guests engaged in making their own drink concoctions as they arrived and the older kids seemed to really enjoy it too. My little girls loved coming up with their own recipes for the perfect drink. I highly recommend this idea for any summer party. It was very successful lemonade stand. By using frozen lemonade, and only making the simple purees from scratch, it kept everything simple to put together the night before as well. If you were doing this when berries are out of season and didn't want to spend too much money on fresh fruit, you could also use frozen fruit to make your purees.
With a fun adult lemonade stand buffet/bar, life really is a party!
More Great Ideas
You might also like our Peach Sangria recipe here.
Also check out our Black Cherry Fizz Drink here.
You might also enjoy our Galentine's Day Cocktail and Bar Cart here.
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