Which Fast-Food Chain Has the Best Lemonade? McDonald’s, Sonic, Wendy’s

From left to right (in descending size order), I tried lemonades from Wendy’s, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Sonic, and Panera.

I opted for a medium or regular size from each location. When chains offered different flavors of lemonade, I went for the classic option.

Wendy’s actually has an entire lemonade menu, called Dave’s Craft Lemonade Menu, which offers four kinds of lemonade: Tangerine Twist (new this summer), Pineapple Mango, Strawberry, and All-Natural, which is what I ordered.

A medium lemonade at my local Wendy’s on Long Island cost $3.69. At 32 fluid ounces, it was the largest drink of the six, and technically the best value.

This didn’t taste bad, exactly, just bland. Fans of seltzers like La Croix and Spindrift might prefer this lemonade, since it wasn’t overly sweet — it just tasted very watery.

This might also be a result of the cup’s size. It required a lot of ice to fill up, which could’ve watered my drink down a bit.

Wendy’s did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

I ordered a regular Agave Lemonade from Panera, which cost $3.29. It was one of the smallest cups of lemonade I bought, at 20 fluid ounces.

According to Panera’s menu, its lemonade contains “lemon juice, sugar, agave nectar, and water ” — and no artificial sweeteners.

Maybe I’ve just had one too many margaritas, but the agave taste was not for me, and the aftertaste was even worse. It was so sugary that I felt like a cavity spontaneously formed in one of my molars.

Between its sweetness and relatively small size, I can’t recommend this lemonade, but maybe agave lovers would enjoy it.

Panera did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Sonic has a ton of lemonades and limeades to try, including cherry, strawberry, cranberry, blueberry lavender, dragonberry, and more.

I paid $4.29 for a medium All Natural Lemonade at Sonic, which is 20 fluid ounces. That made this the most expensive and one of the smallest lemonades I tried.

I think this was one of the sweetest lemonades I tried, but I didn’t hate it.

What really puts this at No. 4, though, is the value. It was more money for less liquid.

Sonic did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

As a kind of control group, I wanted to add a chain that doesn’t have a proprietary lemonade recipe and instead uses a mass-produced brand like Minute Maid.

A medium lemonade at Burger King cost me $2.59 for 30 fluid ounces, making it the cheapest one on this list.

This was a perfectly average cup of fast-food lemonade. It was a bit sweet and artificial tasting, but it was essentially what I expected from Minute Maid and Burger King.

The value is what bumped this up to No. 3.

Burger King did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

A medium lemonade at Chick-fil-A set me back $3.42 for 20 fluid ounces.

Typically, I’m not a pulp person. However, it surprised me to have some lemon pulp in my lemonade, and it made me feel like I was drinking a freshly squeezed cup of lemonade — it tasted like it, too.

Besides the texture, my other complaint about Chick-fil-A’s lemonade was that my ice melted way too quickly. It was almost entirely gone by the time I got home — and it wasn’t just because it was a hot day; all the other lemonades I had remained full of ice.

Chick-fil-A uses nugget ice, which is essentially small, chewable pellets of ice. Sonic uses that ice too, but for some reason — maybe the cup? — its ice stayed intact. The other chains used normal cubes or crushed ice, which also did not melt as quickly.

Chick-fil-A did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

In April, McDonald’s replaced the Minute Maid lemonade it had been using with a new offering called Premium Lemonade.

The Premium Lemonade has “lemon juice, lemon pulp, and cane sugar” in it, the chain said at the time.

I paid $2.89 for a medium, which is 21 fluid ounces.

I took a sip of this and immediately thought to myself, “This is what lemonade should taste like.”

It was crisp, not too sweet, not too bitter, had the perfect amount of ice, and tasted like a sip of summertime.

And at $2.89, it was the second-cheapest lemonade I tried. You can’t go wrong with this option.

McDonald’s did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

All these lemonades have something to offer, whether it’s a cheap price, varied levels of sweetness, different types of ice, or different types of sweetener.

But, if I had to pick one, McDonald’s would be my recommendation for anyone in search of a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.