Sweet as pie! Cool down this summer with an ice cold, refreshing cherry pie iced tea made with Gold Peak Unsweetened Iced Tea. Your tastebuds will thank you.
I’ll be honest, the summer heat is not always my friend. I love summer activities, but the heat sometimes gets to me. The only thing that gets me through is a lot of ice-cold beverages. Usually, I will hydrate with water. But sometimes, I need something with more flavor to refresh me. I like to get creative and, me being who I am, decided to try my hand at making a drink that tastes like pie.
And friends, it was an undeniable success. I decided to work off Gold Peak® Unsweetened Black Tea that I purchased from Sam’s Club as my base because their iced tea has a deliciously smooth flavor that complements bold fruity flavors. I knew I needed to keep the recipe simple and easy to put together without too much fuss. And since no one wants to infuse a syrup with actual pie, I needed to find a different way to get that pie-like flavor.
I knew the best bet to making a cherry pie iced tea would be to use different flavors and extracts, and I started experimenting with a few of my favorites. The trick to getting the most out of your flavor adds when making syrups is to add them in after you’ve already cooked down the syrup and you are in the process of cooling the syrup. I decided to use two different flavor additions to get that correct flavor across in the syrup. The first is approximately one tablespoon real butter because there is nothing better than a flaky all-butter pie crust. It did the job well, but it wasn’t “pie-like” enough—so just a touch of vanilla extract really completed it!
The recipe for this Cherry Pie Iced Tea syrup makes enough for a few servings. It’s actually the perfect amount for you to use the larger individual bottles of Gold Peak Unsweetened after you’ve taken a few sips to make room for the syrup. It makes it easier for you to take your cherry pie iced tea on the go and make every sip a celebration.
You can also double or triple the recipe to make enough for a lot of people during your summer BBQ along with some blueberry lemonade and blackberry lemonade.
Cherry Pie Iced Tea
Ingredients
Homemade Syrup
- 1 cup frozen pitted cherries
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup water
- Pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon real butter
- ½ teaspoon cake batter extract optional
Cherry Pie Iced Tea
- 2 cups Gold Peak Unsweetened Black Tea
- 4 tablespoons cherry pie syrup
- Fresh cherries for garnish
Instructions
- Add the cherries, sugar, water, and salt to a saucepan and cook. Mash the cherries as they soften and continue to cook until the liquid is thickened slightly. It will thicken more as it cools.
- Strain the syrup from the cherries. Press the cherries against a fine mesh strainer to get as much of the liquid as possible.
- Discard the cherries. Stir in the lemon juice, and vanilla extracts and melted butter. Set aside to cool.
- Stir four tablespoons of the syrup into 2 cups of cold Gold Peak Unsweetened Iced Tea. (Recipe can be doubled or halved as needed).
- Serve ice cold, preferably with fresh cherries as garnish!
Emily D'Emidio says
This was a really fun iced tea syrup! Definitely too strong to add to an already-sweetened iced tea (my mistake) but much better when used as intended. It's a little bit unnerving to have a buttery glass afterwards, though!
Amanda Powell says
Hi Emily! Yes, it was definitely designed to go into unsweetened tea - it's a lot of sugar! I actually prefer to use butter extract, but because this was a collaboration recipe, I had to stay within their guidelines when creating it. If you do make it again, try it with butter extract and see how that goes (you'll need only about 1 to 1.5 teaspoons).