With summer in full swing, it’s time to reach for the cold drinks. One favorite is the iced coffee drinks that come from coffee shops and the pre-made packaged kind. Skip the drive thru and their $4.00 drinks and pass on the convenience store’s $2.00 or more drinks as well and make it yourself! Even the packets are not low cost and you get far less.

(Guest post from Christina – Walmart Specialist)

Even if you buy iced coffee in packs at Walmart, they are still near the $6.00 range for these little coffee delights and you get far less than if you made it yourself. Making this recipe also allows you to choose the flavors and come up with your own.

For this Iced Coffee recipe, you will need:

• Coffee of your choice (I use Cafe Bustelo $3.88)
• Half and Half ($1.58)
• Sweetener ($2.58)
• Ice Cubes
• Water

Optional: Flavor of your choice such as caramel sauce or chocolate syrup.

1. Make your coffee a little stronger than you normally would. I made 2 pots of extra strong, or about 12 cups.

2. Put the coffee in the fridge to cool. It should be ready to use in about 1 1/2.

3. Fill  a glass full with ice.  (I got both this glass mug [$2.00] and carafe [$3.88] at Walmart by the way.)

4. Pour on the coffee, add chocolate syrup or other flavoring if you desire.

5. Add Half and Half. A splash will do. (Don’t you just love the way it swirls in the cup?)

6. Sweeten to taste.

You can also make this on a larger scale in the carafe or another container and keep it in the fridge. Keep in mind, though, that the mixture spoils faster than the coffee alone, so if you aren’t going to drink it up in a very short amount of time, I suggest you keep the coffee by itself in the fridge minus the ingredients.

While the initial ingredients cost more than in the store, because you are only using a portion, these servings cost less than 50 cents each. The only real expensive part (and it’s not really, you could also use milk for a lower fat version!) is the Half and Half. In one small can of Cafe Bustelo, you could get a lot of servings.

There is another way to brew the coffee, called “Cold Brewing” which is where you use cold water, leave it sit at room temperature and strain it out after. This allows you to make a stronger brew, but it can be time consuming and messy.  Either way you do it will work for this recipe.