Copycat Diet Cherry Limeade

No need to drive to your local Sonic, you can make this Copycat Diet Cherry Limeade at home! Only 4 simple and inexpensive ingredients are required to make this bubbly cherry and lime diet soda that you’ll be sipping on all summer long.

I am SO unbelievably excited to share with you this copycat Sonic drink.

If you follow me on Instagram, you will remember a while back I had this CRAVING for Sonic’s diet cherry limeade. In Northern Virginia, there’s like two Sonic locations and they’re all ~30ish minutes from me and just a pain to get to (i.e. traffic). Whenever I visit Brandy, we always go to Sonic daily for our diet cherry limeade fill.

The second it hits my tongue, it is so refreshing. The bubbly from the soda also helps and it’s just all around the best drink from a fast food joint and it’s incredibly refreshing.

I’m not a huge soda fan but man, this diet cherry limeade consistently hits the spot for me. Diet sodas can be hit or miss. Sometimes, they just taste like artificial sweeteners and chemicals to me! However, there are a few sparkling gems hidden across the drive-thrus of America that always satisfy with no sugar. Diet cherry limeade from Sonic is one of those gems! It really doesn’t taste diet at all, and you still get everything you love about limeade with significantly less sugar and calories.

The best part is, this fresh and fruity diet drink is SO easy to make. Plus, it’s less costly to make your own diet limeade at home. I know that ordering this drink from Sonic isn’t necessarily breaking the bank, but you can make several of them at home for the cost of one from the drive-thru. And, when you make it at home, you can alter it any way you’d like! More limey, less cherry, etc. It’s all up to you, and you don’t have to worry about your order getting messed up!

If 2020 taught us anything about food, it’s that we all need to be masters of our own kitchens… and that we also need to master our favorite copycat recipes in case everything gets shut down again!

This copycat Sonic limeade really tastes just like the real thing, if not even better. It’s easy to make, super budget friendly, and the perfect summer treat! But let’s be real, I’ll probably be sipping on diet cherry limeades all throughout this winter and fall, too. They’re just too good!

Ingredients

• Soda – You can use diet 7UP, diet sprite, or any other generic diet lemon lime soda. They’ll all work just fine!
• Maraschino cherry syrup – The easiest way to get this syrup is just to buy a jar of maraschino cherries and use the syrup directly from that. However, if you can find a sugar free cherry syrup, that’ll do the trick too.
• Maraschino cherries – You can’t have a limeade without these candy-like cherries floating on top! Diet or no diet, everyone deserves a little treat with their drink.
• Lime juice – For best results, use the juice from freshly squeezed limes.
• Crunchy ice – if you have a Sonic near you, did you know you can buy their bagged crunchy ice to go?!

Can I make this copycat diet cherry limeade boozy?

You sure can, and there are plenty of ways to do it!

To make this drink boozy, you can add half a cup of vodka to the pitcher. However, you can also get creative with plenty of cherry and lime flavored liquors as well. I’d love to hear about what concoctions you come up with!

Can I use another flavor instead of cherry?

You could but this is the iconic CHERRY limeade, haha

I guess you could find other syrups for this limeade.

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