Ocean water is one of Sonic restaurant’s most popular drinks. This is a great Sonic copycat recipe.
Sonic Copycat: Even Looks Cool
With record heat not only around the country, but in the entire world, everyone’s looking to cool off. It’s important to remain hydrated too.
Sometimes you want something a little more tasty than water to remain hydrated and this is a perfect beverage. Just looking at this cools me off a bit because of the lovely blue color. Yes, it’s due to some food coloring, but not much for the entire batch.
There’s lots of recipes on the net for this Sonic copycat recipe, but I’ve adapted this one a bit for my own personal tastes and even added a tasty, yet optional ingredient, for those who’d like to up the ante a bit on this.
Start With A Simple Syrup
If you’ve ever made ice cream that doesn’t use a cooked custard, then you’re familiar with simple syrup.
All it is is water and sugar in equal amounts that’s heated so the sugar dissolves. It must be cool–at least room temperature–to use it.
Then ocean water becomes any easy affair by just adding the flavoring, soda pop and the food coloring.
Ocean Water Is Pretty Sweet
That it is! However, since you must add plenty of ice to this drink, the coldness seems to offset the sweetness somewhat.
To make this beverage a little more interesting–and tasty too–what I plan to do next time I make it is to add some frozen fresh pineapple chunks. Then it’ll be something like a non-alcoholic piña colada! It’d also add some fiber and nutritional value. Especially if you replace the large amount of ice cubes with frozen pineapple chunks.
Another thing I did here was to reduce the amount of coconut extract. Made as the majority of recipes that are online for Sonic copycat ocean water, the amount of the extract I found to be overpowering and as an aside, really fake tasting. I love coconut to excess but the imitation extract does taste very fake if there’s too much. Of course, try it with real coconut extract; it should be better, but start out with my amounts before you add more.
The Recipe
Ocean Water
Ingredients
- 3 tbs sugar
- 3 tbs water
- 1/2 tsp coconut extract
- 24 oz carbonated lemon-lime soda pop
- 3 drops blue food coloring.
Instructions
- Combine sugar and water in a small microwave-safe bowl. Heat for 30 seconds on high; stir to dissolve. Set aside until this syrup is room temperature.
- In a larger bowl combine the cooled syrup, coconut extract and lemon-lime soda. Gently stir in the food coloring.
- Serve over ice.
I used to date a woman who loved to add Tuaca, an Italian brandy liqueur, to this. It made it a little too sweet for me, but it was a good tasty combo.
That sounds interesting!
This sounds like something my kids would like! I have never got the chance to eat at a Sonic so I don’t know the drink you recreated. We had one in town for a short time and never went. Then poof they were gone when we decided to try it. We went to the city near us and poof that one was gone too 🙁 I feel like I am missing out not trying Sonic but there are none close anymore.
But at least we can still try this drink!
Dawn Conklin recently posted…No Bake Strawberry Dessert
I have made this even before sonic started carrying it lol….but in my case i flavour my simple syrup either with orange/lime/lemon peel or ginger as it comes up to a boil, and then let it steep…adds some real nice flavour, or you could add coconut water/juice instead of plain water…keeps it nice and clear…I get the one that has the tiny chunks of young coconut in it…great stuff
That sounds good! And I like the coconut water too. As I said in the post, I reduced the coconut extract because it tasted “fake.” Going to try that when I make it next.