Don’t feel like leaving the house to grab a drink? Make any of these homemade hard seltzers at home! Happy hour has never been so refreshing and EASY! What time is it? Seltzer time! We are huge fans of bubbly water (no matter the flavor) and when it is happy hour time, we usually switch to one of our vodka cocktail recipes, a hard seltzer (a Press or White Claw), or one of these refreshing HOMEMADE hard seltzer recipes!

What is hard seltzer?

Hard seltzer (or spiked seltzer) is an alcoholic beverage that mixes sparkling water/tonic water, malt liquor, and natural flavorings such as citrus or fresh herbs. Hard seltzer drinks are typically lower in sugar and lower in calories compared to many other alcoholic beverages. Over the last few years, hard seltzer products have become a staple in most liquor stores and have become a widely popular drink. Some of the most popular store-bought hard seltzer products include:

• White Claw
• Truly
• Press

Why Make Homemade Hard Seltzer?

A perfect ‘pantry’ drink. Homemade hard seltzers are made with things you have right in your pantry or your refrigerator! All you need is bubbly water (seltzer water), citrus, herbs, and vodka. We have created delicious flavor combinations, but feel free to use our recipes as inspiration and get creative and use fruit that you have on hand Easy to Make. After you have gathered all of your ingredients, all you have to do is shake all of the ingredients together until all of the ingredients are combined and chilled. Then, pour the seltzer in a glass over nice and enjoy! Perfect for one drink or a pitcher. If you want to make one cocktail for yourself or make a big pitcher for a whole group, we’ve got you covered! Follow the directions below for single or double servings. If you would like to make a pitcher of homemade hard seltzer, all you have to do is times the ingredients by 4 or 8, depending on how many servings you would like. Place all of the ingredients (but the seltzer water) in the bottom of the pitcher with ice. Add the seltzer water right before serving. Stir all of the ingredients together with a spoon and serve!

How to Make Homemade Hard Seltzer

Before we jump into each individual flavor, let’s go over ingredients that are used in each of these recipes and how you can be prepared before you start to mix your hard seltzers.

What Kind of Alcohol to Use

Canned hard seltzer is usually made with malt liquor. We decided to make these homemade hard seltzers with vodka because it’s accessible and pairs great with a variety of flavors. Don’t love vodka? Here are some other recommendations to try:

• white rum
• tequila

Seltzer Water

You can use seltzer water, club soda, or sparkling water as the ‘bubbles’ in your homemade hard seltzer. All of them will work just fine! Here are the main differences between the three! Sparkling Water- Is made with natural spring water and is bubbly from natural occurring minerals and sometimes has some carbon dioxide added to it. Club Soda- Is carbonated with carbon dioxide,  potassium bicarbonate, and potassium sulfate. All of these ingredients add a bit of a salty bite to any drink. Seltzer- Is carbonated with carbon dioxide and is what drinks like LaCroix are made out of.

Choose Your Fruit

We decided to use citrus in each of our homemade hard seltzer flavors. We did that because we wanted each hard seltzer to be refreshing and flavorful. Fresh citrus juice is the perfect fruit juice! From there we also used fresh herbs. Combining fresh juice with fresh herbs is one of our favorite ways to add flavors to cocktails! Check out our hibiscus Arnold palmer, rosemary vodka collins, or our strawberry vodka.

Sweetener

Our goal in sweetening this drink was to 1. avoid refined sugar and 2. not use fake sugar or stevia. This is why we love our honey simple syrup. It’s all-natural, sweet, and so easy to make! Feel free to follow that same recipe, but use agave instead. I’ve done it and it’s delish.

3 Delicious Flavors

Lime & Mint

Lime mint is one amazing and refreshing combination. You can use normal limes or key limes and you can use any type of mint that you have available to you!

Grapefruit

This grapefruit homemade seltzer reminds us of the oh-so-popular LaCroix flavor Pamplemousse. We mix a little bit of lime juice into this recipe as well to give it an extra citrus punch! Don’t forget the garnish–> We used rosemary as a garnish for this drink, but feel free t use any fresh herb!

Orange Ginger

May I say that this is our favorite flavor! This orange ginger hard seltzer is sweet and spicy all at the same time. It gives an extra little flare to any happy hour you host! Here’s a tip—> If you do not want any ginger or orange pulp in your drink, after you shake all the ingredients together, poor it through a fine sieve to strain out the pulp.

Refreshing Cocktails

• Blood Orange Margarita 
• Classic Moscow Mule
• Honey Greyhound Cocktail

Watch how to make Homemade Hard Seltzers

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