The search for the drink of summer 2025 is over – and it's Lonkero

The Guardian

17-07-2025

Ideally, to qualify for the title, the drink of the summer – like the song of the summer – should be obvious and undeniable, emerging some time in mid-June before spreading, as though on the breeze, to be inescapable by August.
You should have never even heard of this beverage before the temperature hits 20C, then you shouldn't be able to imagine life without it. You might return to it years later, and even enjoy it – but it should never hit quite the same way as it did that first summer it was everywhere.
Unfortunately, this high-season, low-stakes tradition has been tested over the past decade by our heavily saturated yet highly atomised consumer culture. These days, we're flooded with options (rosorange wine? Smoked beers?) but struggle to align behind any of them. The TikTok-driven trend cycle doesn't help, claiming every teenager's cupboard-raiding concoction is the next big thing.
So I was taken aback – and a little delighted – when the drink of this summer made itself known to me as though it were the year 2015, not 2025: organically, insistently and right on time. It's Lonkero: gin mixed with grapefruit soda, available on draught and served in pints.
I feel confident in my pick, but I've also included some alternatives. The debate, after all, is part of the fun.
I first learned of Lonkero on 18 June, when a friend messaged our group chat saying she'd just tried one at the pub, and that it had been 'occupying a lot of brain space' since.
None of us had ever heard of it. The next day, another friend tried it, was instantly won over and bought a case. Then it came up again at my gym, an entirely different social circle. Then a second pub started serving it.
When I finally got around to trying Lonkero, I was immediately converted – and, judging by the pint glasses containing telltale grapefruit wedges on all the tables surrounding me, most of Norwich had been, too.
'We're bizarrely doing very well in Norwich,' confirms the Lonkero co-founder Paige Gibbons. Other UK hotspots include Edinburgh, Brighton and pockets of London; they have also just started distributing to the north.
Though Lonkero is a new brand, having launched in May last year, the drink itself dates back to 1952, and the Helsinki Olympic Games. To mark the occasion, the host nation came up with a premixed beverage of gin and grapefruit soda; it proved such a hit, with locals as well as visitors, it stuck.
The generic lonkero ('long drink' in English) has since been dubbed the national drink of Finland. The Lonkero co-founder Joe Harris developed a taste for it while working in Helsinki, then teamed up with Gibbons to bring it to the UK.
For Gibbons, not a fan of beer or cider, Lonkero held instant appeal as an easy-drinking beverage served in pints. 'I always used to joke that I was fed up with paying double the price for a drink that I'd finish sooner,' she says.
She was not alone: in its first six months, Lonkero sold more than 50,000 pints. Distribution has been focused on pubs, which can offer Lonkero on tap and present it as an alternative to a session ale or cider (rather than an alcopop or even a G&T). Gibbons describes it as a 'new category of drink'.
'What we've found is that, if people try it, they get it,' she says. 'Word of mouth has been phenomenal for us – if you find it and like it, it's actually something you tell your friends about.'
That shareable quality, I'd argue, is the X-factor that distinguishes a bona fide drink of the summer from one drummed up for clicks. Very few of the beverages that go viral on TikTok actually make an impact in pubs and bars (and I would know). Lonkero, on the other hand, has hit Norwich with unmistakable force. At this rate, we might wind up with a pub for every day of the year and a Lonkero pub for every Sunday.
Of course, as much as the answer should be obvious, the debate is part of what makes the 'drink of the summer' question so compelling.
Stylist magazine was early to call it, declaring back in May that the 2025 beverage of choice was the spicy paloma. It was a safe pick, combining two already trendy cocktails: the paloma and the spicy margarita.
The traditional paloma combines tequila, grapefruit soda and lime juice; in this case, the addition of jalapeños or chilli peppers and often a spicy rim add kick.
At the time of Stylist's report, it was already being offered at many trendy London joints, but has the added advantage of being easy to whip up off-menu.
The Aperol spritz may have ushered in the concept of the 'drink of the summer'; it remains the defining example, along with the less syrupy Campari spritz. Still today, the holiday hasn't officially begun until you have a bright orange beverage in a goldfish-bowl glass in your hand.
In the years since Aperol's peak, however, there have been rumblings of dissent: it's too sweet, too obvious, too 2021 …
This summer's spritz of choice has been declared the Hugo (or St-Germain) spritz, comprising elderflower cordial, prosecco, soda water, mint and lime. It signals your discernment amid an orange sea – and, even better, it's now available in a can from M&S.
If elderflower is too subtle for you, the limoncello spritz – another new M&S cocktail – is a similarly sweet and eye-catching alternative to Aperol, like replacing your tired old orange highlighter with a snazzy yellow one.
If you are unwilling to be parted from Aperol, a naked and famous might be your next favourite order. Delish magazine's pick for drink of summer 2025, the cocktail packs a heavy punch with equal parts mezcal, yellow chartreuse, Aperol and fresh lime juice.
It was devised in 2011 by the New York bartender Joaquín Simó, who described it as a 'more evolved, refined margarita', and has been steadily gaining popularity along with mezcal.
If anything thwarts your order, it will be the chartreuse. The French herbal liqueur has been in short supply since the Carthusian monks who produce it decided to focus instead on 'solitude and prayer'.
You may have already learned on this website of BuzzBallz, the globular pre-mixed cocktails loved by gen Z, available in flavours including Tequila 'Rita, Lotta Colada and Choc Tease.
They tick many of the boxes for 'drink of the summer': they're attention-grabbing on social media, a conversation starter in person (did you know the company is female-owned?), and highly portable: is that a BuzzBallz in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
They are not more offensive than most pre-mixed cocktails – and almost impressively refined, given the high alcohol content – but the taste is rather beside the point. Faced with the novel selection of brightly coloured balls, they feel more like Pokémon than beverages: you want to try 'em all.
For the moment, until gen Z moves on, BuzzBallz have the added advantage of making you seem youthful and in the know by association.
For those not sure they have the prerequisite rizz for BuzzBallz, Suntory -196 is a more grown-up yet still novel alternative.
The vodka-based RTDs are a vending-machine staple in Suntory's native Japan, but only launched in the UK last year; they are now widely available in supermarkets (though, sadly, not vending machines), in grapefruit and lemon flavours.
The name ('minus one nine six') refers to the temperature at which fruit is frozen, using liquid nitrogen, before being crushed into powder and mixed with shochu and vodka. With half the alcohol content of BuzzBallz, they are a safer bet in more ways than one.
At the opposite end of the youthful-abandon spectrum is a growing subcategory that might be termed 'fitspo bevs'.
Where ordering a vodka soda marks you as calorie-conscious, unchill and so 90s, today's trend for 'hard seltzers' is positioned as optimisation, not deprivation.
White Claw, my own longtime premix of choice, is best described as fruit-flavoured fizzy water with an ambiguous-sounding 'gluten-free malted alcohol base' (not vodka, but some other thing). In April, the makers launched a limited-edition Green Apple flavour, just in time for brat summer round two.
An even more streamlined option is 'ranch water': basically, fizzy water spiked with white tequila and lime. The New York Times recipe suggests spicing it up with a salt rim, and a splash of Cointreau or flavoured syrup – but even that might be too much fuss for purists.
If the drink of the summer isn't alcoholic, it tends to skew towards a refreshing dessert. Tiramisu is emerging as the flavour of these summer months, with Starbucks UK winning over gen Z with its limited-edition tiramisu-inspired drinks menu.
The secret to its success has been 'cold foam': an airy, frothy, dairy topping that sits on top of iced coffees (leading Slate to declare the drink of the summer … foam).
In Bristol, Full Court Press cafe has been doing brisk trade in its new Tiramibru: nitrogen-infused cold-brew coffee, topped with a shaken jersey pouring cream, mixed with a hint of panela sugar and a dusting of chocolate powder.
Co-owner Jonny Simpson describes it as a twist on the iced-coffee-with-cream drinks that are popular across east Asia and recently went viral in Melbourne as a 'Mont Blanc'. 'We wanted to run a dessert-like drink that felt like an afternoon treat,' he says. 'It tastes like a liquid tiramisu, hence the name.'
It has proved extremely popular, even at £5 a pop. 'We often struggle to keep up with the cold-brew production on hot days.'
The Tiramibru will run to the end of the summer; Simpson is already thinking of how to adapt it for winter.
It is, after all, a less crowded market.