14 Easy Summer Cocktails—Plus, the 1 Trick that Makes them Taste Incredible

One of my favorite things about summer is that most drinking takes place outdoors, often at home (or someone else’s place, or a weekend rental house, or—you get it). Instead of cramming into a dark bar for overpriced drinks and mediocre music, summer happy hours are spent watching the sunset on a deck, floating in a pool, or gathered around a grill.

This means I end up mixing a lot of drinks in the summertime, often in big batches for big groups of people. What I’ve learned is that there’s one secret to great (and easy) summer cocktails: freshly squeezed lime juice.

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When I head to the grocery store to stock up for a backyard barbecue, I always load up on dozens of fresh limes. At first, my friends raise their eyebrows, but in no time, we’re all on the same page. Because—and trust me on this one—freshly squeezed lime juice makes any drink taste amazing.

I usually juice all my limes at once, using a handheld lemon juicer. (I opt for the lemon juicer over the lime juicer, because it’s slightly bigger, meaning I never come across a lime that doesn’t fit.) I halve and juice the limes, then store the juice in a sealed bottle that I keep in the fridge.

Then, when it comes time to break out the cocktails, I mix them with my hand-squeezed lime juice, and voila—undeniably delicious drinks. (For what it’s worth, the lime juice only lasts two or three days in the fridge, but I’ve never failed to use it all up in that amount of time.)

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Below are 14 of the best easy summer cocktails you can make with fresh lime juice, from classic margaritas to next-level mojitos. Give these a shot at your next backyard party—with homemade lime juice—and I pretty much guarantee everyone will be in awe of your killer cocktail-mixing skills.