Artificial Food Coloring Free Cucumber Mint Sparkling Cooler
Bright, refreshing, and genuinely beautiful in the glass, this sparkling cooler is the kind of drink that makes a regular afternoon feel like a special occasion. Every single ingredient here is whole and recognizable — fresh cucumber, real mint, lime juice, maple syrup, and sparkling water — so there's zero guesswork about what's actually going into your glass. Store-bought flavored sodas and cocktail mixers are notorious for sneaking in synthetic dyes to achieve that vivid color, but this drink gets its gorgeous pale green hue entirely from blended cucumber and steeped mint. The mint simple syrup is a small but brilliant step: simmering maple syrup with water and then steeping fresh leaves pulls out a clean, herbal sweetness that tastes nothing like artificially flavored mint. Blending and straining the cucumber creates a silky, lightly vegetal base that pairs perfectly with the brightness of fresh lime juice. Finishing with chilled sparkling water right before serving keeps everything lively and effervescent. It's the kind of drink you'll want to keep on rotation all summer long.
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Learn more →Ingredients
4 servings
For the mint simple syrup
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup water
- ½ cup fresh mint leaves, loosely packed, plus more for garnish
For the cucumber base
- 1 medium english cucumber (about 12 oz), peeled and roughly chopped
- 3 tbsp fresh lime juice (from about 2 limes)
- 1 cup cold water
To finish
- 2 cups sparkling water, chilled
For serving
- ice cubes, for serving
- lime slices, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- 1
Combine the maple syrup and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the syrup dissolves, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat, add the mint leaves, and stir to submerge. Let steep for 20 minutes, then strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a small bowl, pressing the leaves to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the spent mint. Let the syrup cool to room temperature.
- 2
Add the chopped cucumber and 1 cup cold water to a blender. Blend on high until completely smooth, about 30 seconds. Pour through the fine-mesh strainer into a pitcher, pressing the solids with the back of a spoon to extract all the liquid. Discard the solids.
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