Aldi's New Spicy Lemonade Makes Quite An Impression

Welcome back to the Aldi Aisle of Shame column, where Daily Meal's Aldi superfans try out the most attention-grabbing new Find of the week to let you know if it's worth seeking out.

While sweet and spicy ("swicy") foods have been all the rage these past few years, I'm more into spicy and sour ("spour?"), and had hopes that this spicy lemonade might satisfy that craving. Well, to be honest, I had more fears than hopes. While I do consider myself an Aldi fan, I often find its products too sugary for my liking. For instance, I was seriously let down by Burman's corn syrup-heavy jalapeño and habanero tomato ketchups (don't look for these seasonal Aldi items to become permanent — there's a reason they went on clearance for 35 cents).

However, the ingredients label for the lemonade was reassuring: water, lemon juice, jalapeño puree, lemon pulp, and natural flavor, with no corn syrup in sight. Plus, at $2.29 for a half-gallon bottle, the price was low enough to be worth the risk. When I tried the lemonade, the first thing I noticed was that it is, in fact, spicy. Not all so-called spicy products live up to the hype, but this lemonade had noticeable jalapeño heat. My second impression was that while the beverage was somewhat sweeter than I prefer, it wasn't overwhelmingly sugary. The heat brought a nice balance. The lemon taste was ever-so-slightly artificial (must be those "natural flavors"), but this is common with all store-bought lemonade.

I usually only drink lemonade on its own on those rare occasions when I have sufficient time and spare lemons to make it from scratch. Next time, I might turn up the heat with jalapeño juice, now that Aldi has shown me what a great combo this can be. I do buy the bottled kind semi-regularly to use as a mixer, though, so I tried this with the spicy lemonade. Combining it with cold, unsweetened green tea camouflaged the artificial taste to some extent, but not entirely. Mixing it with lager to make a shandy, though, was a complete success, and I'll definitely be doing that again.

So would I recommend Nature's Nectar Spicy Lemonade? Yes, absolutely. In fact, I plan to go back and pick up a few more bottle before it goes away. I rate it four out of five stars, which is as high as I'll go for any bottled lemonade (and higher than about 90% of options). And considering the price, this is pretty much a must-buy for any of my fellow Aldi shoppers who also enjoy swicy or spour flavor combos.