This drink was also featured on Giada’s show, just like the Nonna Luna’s Rice that I just made, and is as pretty to look at as it is to drink! Well, sort of. Giada used blueberries instead of raspberries. But it is the height of raspberry season right now, and blueberries are still coming into their own – they won’t peak here for a couple weeks yet. While raspberries complement a good dark chocolate really well (and is one of my favorite food combinations ever), they also happen to pair magnificently with lemons. This cool spritzy drink is super refreshing on a hot summery afternoon, and is guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser for your guests!
Printer Friendly Recipe
Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis
Ingredients:
Fresh raspberries
A couple sprigs of mint
2 parts lemon flavored sparkling mineral water
1 part Limoncello liqueur
Directions:
1. At least an hour ahead of time, put raspberries in the freezer. Alternatively, you could use frozen raspberries, but freezing the fresh ones keeps them from being so runny.
2. Add a couple of crushed small leaves/pieces of mint to each glass and add some frozen raspberries – these will serve as your ice cubes!
3. Add limoncello, then sparkling water.
4. Enjoy!
If you want this drink to be non-alcoholic, I would do 2 parts lemonade to 1 part sparkling water. The limoncello is a lot stronger in flavor than lemonade would be, and so if you make this with lemonade instead you are going to need more.
The original recipe uses a much higher proportion of limoncello than I listed here. Feel free to change this to your taste. It was a bit too much limoncello for my taste that way, and felt that there was plenty of lemony flavor the way I listed it here. I am sure the lemon flavored spritzy water helped keep it from tasting diluted. Also, using the raspberries for ice cubes helps too.
Wonderfully, there were no gluten issues with this drink, which my husband really appreciated!!
PDF 
All About GF Substitutions
This looks like the perfect summer drink!
looks wonderful! i will have to try this soon.
oooh, sweet! Can’t wait to try and looks beautiful!
mmmm those look delicious! We have a bottle of limoncello that is just asking to be used for this!
Limoncello would be hard to find here in Brazil, but with a little imagination, I can come up with a sub.
Great blog, love how you have presented the recipes. Came here via For the love of Cooking.
Have also added you to Blogger’s Cafe, check it out under Food and Drinks.
AV
I’ve just recently stumbled across your blog – your pictures are lovely! I also adore dark chocolate + raspberry, but this lemon + raspberry combo looks equally delicious. Can’t wait to try it out, on a really hot day!
Lemon and raspberries are a perfect combination! That drink looks delish!
This and your recent recipes all look wonderful! I love love love limoncello… especially with coke! I’ve been on a slight commenting hiatus with my busy schedule lately… but it’s great to catch up and see what’s cooking in your kitchen!
Oh thanks! If you are feeling adventurous, you can try some homemade limoncello – Steep a bunch of lemon peels for a few days in vodka and then add in some simple syrup – Giada has a recipe for it here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/limoncello-recipe/index.html
Wow! What a beautiful drink! I will be making these for an upcoming dinner party! Thank you for sharing it!
Or serve it along with some chocolate cake or ice cream. Hmmm… I think I have some dark chocolate sorbet in the freezer right now…
What a beautiful photograph!! I’m really enjoying reading your blog!
Thanks for that, and the e-mail. I’ll post about that and link the site. It’s interesting even though I despise vodka. There are other spirit substitutes.
AV