Alcoholic beverage, malt beer, hard lemonade

Hard lemonade is a flavored malt beverage, a fermented malt base sweetened and flavored to taste like traditional lemonade rather than beer, pale yellow, lightly carbonated and served ice cold straight from the bottle or can. It's a warm-weather, backyard drink, usually poured over ice or into a chilled glass rather than mixed into cocktails, and its sweet-tart profile pairs it naturally with grilled foods, fruit-forward desserts or simply on its own on a hot afternoon. Some drinkers add a wedge of fresh lemon or a few mint leaves to the glass to echo the lemonade character the malt base is built to imitate, and it's often set out alongside regular lemonade at a cookout so guests can choose either version.

Per 100 g it has just 68 calories, with 10.1 g carbohydrate and 9.77 g sugar and essentially no protein or fat, a lighter profile than many sweetened alcoholic drinks and closer in calorie terms to a light beer than to a sugary cocktail. Sodium is negligible at 5 mg per 100 g. Keep bottles or cans refrigerated and serve cold, since the flavor is built around a crisp, chilled lemonade character that flattens out at room temperature, and pour it into a chilled glass rather than a warm one if serving at a gathering.