Red White and Blue Patriotic Drink
Nothing says the 4th of July like a refreshing, delicious and stunning red, white, and blue patriotic drink!
In honor of the upcoming 4th of July holiday and in celebration (celebration??) of the blazing hot weather we are enjoying (enjoying??), today and Thursday I’ll be sharing two fun, festive and deliciously cold and refreshing drinks to help you along.
First up are these adorable and clever layered drinks. They are popping up all over the internet and I had to make them to really believe they could work.
Who would’ve thought that based on something simple like sugar content, the drinks would stay put in their own little layersphere. Definitely one of those “why didn’t I think of that moments.” But considering I can barely remember my children’s names let alone my high school physics class (or would it be chemistry I need to call on?), I’m not really surprised my brain didn’t go there first.
I kind of grabbed different drinks to make these layered beauties work without thinking about flavor combinations and I have to say that having never mixed cranberry juice, blue gatorade and Sprite together (surely I’m not the only one who has never gone there), I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
It was delicious! And seriously, I think these drinks are so cute, it wouldn’t matter what they taste like.
When I pulled out these tricky drinks for my kids, they showered me with such praise, I felt like the smartest and coolest mom in the whole world. No need to enlighten them otherwise.
Stay tuned Monday for the other drink that will rock your world. Here’s a hint: fruity volcano.
Red White and Blue Patriotic Drink
Ingredients
- Cranberry Juice, chilled
- Blue Gatorade, not sugar-free, chilled
- Sprite Zero, chilled
- Ice
Instructions
- Fill each glass with ice.
- Pour the cranberry juice into the glass, filling about 1/3 of the way.
- Slowly pour the blue gatorade on top of the ice (if you pour it around the sides of the glass and it hits the cranberry juice directly without filtering over the ice, it won’t create separate layers) and let it flow down until it fills the cup another 1/3 of the way (so now the glass should be 2/3 full).
- Finally, slowly pour the Sprite Zero on the ice and let it slowly flow down to create the final layer. Serve immediately.
Notes
Recipe Source: seen all over the internet, in particular here and here
These are always so fun to make! I featured them earlier in the summer as part of my kids in the kitchen series on a post I did about kitchen science experiments and talked about density.
these were a huge hit with my kids on July 4th. They turned out perfect. thank you!!
What a fun, festive drink!
Very pretty.
Emily – whenever I’ve made this with cranberry juice, the cranberry juice isn’t any thicker than the gatorade. One tip to keep in mind is that the glass needs to be filled with ice and the second drink needs to be poured very slowly over the ice to settle on top of the red drink – not mix in with it. Sorry it didn’t work out!
We tried this and it totally didn’t work. A red drink with 33 grams of sugar and gatorade with only 7 grams. What we got was purple drink, no layers at all. You must need a much thicker drink at the bottom or something, not neccesarily one with a ton more sugar.
mjfluke – as long as the sugar content of the drink you replace the Gatorade with has less sugar than the cranberry juice and more sugar than the Sprite Zero, it should work – so look for a blue colored drink with right around 16g of sugar.
I am not fond of Gatorade. Is there something else you could use that would work in it’s place like Koolaid?
Great idea! thanks Mel!
Love this idea! Thanks, Mel!
Here’s how my day usually goes: check email, open Mel’s Kitchen Cafe email, immediately Pin the recipe. 🙂
Just wanted to say thank you for such yummy recipes and easy-to-follow instructions!
Me too.
Thanks you two!
This is such a great idea! Perfect for the 4th!
LOVE this idea!!! Thanks for sharing it!.. And Happy 4th of July to you!
We did something similar with this in Chemistry class my sophomore year! It looks so nice and I bet it tastes great! Great for 4th of July!
What a “cool” idea. And appropriate for someone (yours truly) who recently quit imbibing alcoholic beverages.
This is so cool!! Never would have thought to mix those drinks, but I bet it’s delicious!!