Lemonade Recipes For National Lemonade Day | The Nibble Webzine Of Food Adventures

TIP OF THE DAY: Glam Your Homemade Lemonade

August 20, 2017 at 8:58 am · Filed under Beverages, Cocktails & Spirits, Food Holidays, Recipes, Tip Of The Day

August 20th is National Lemonade Day (National Watermelon Day is August 3rd). If the only lemonade you drink comes from a bottle, you’ve never experienced real lemonade

(We give a waiver to Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a line of carbonated, flavored malt liquor drinks in a dozen or so flavors. It’s not lemonade per se, but we’re fans.)

Bottled lemonade drinks are not only pasteurized, which kills the fresh flavor; but typically use reconstituted lemon juice, which, of course, totally kills off the bright lemon flavor of fresh-squeezed juice.

Lemonade “made from concentrate” and sold in cartons like orange juice is the far better choice, as are cans of frozen lemonade concentrate.

But the best choice of all is to squeeze fresh lemons. It takes just five minutes to make a single glass, and you can adjust the sweetening to your own taste.

While plain fresh-squeezed lemonade is wonderful in of itself, it’s even more wonderful when you add a bit of glamour.

FOR A LEMONADE PARTY BAR

We leave our pitchers of lemonade unsweetened to accommodate every preference.

For a party, set up a bar where guests can add their own sweeteners—agave, honey, noncaloric sweetener, superfine sugar or simple syrup.

You can buy or easily make the latter two, which, unlike table sugar, dissolve easily in cold drinks.

Make superfine sugar by pulsing table sugar in a food processor or blender.

Make simple syrup by heating sugar in water until it dissolves (recipe).

For adults, bottles of gin, tequila or vodka expand the options.

Provide some of the flavors and garnishes that follow.

LEMONADE RECIPE TIPS & TRICKS

1. Make Fancy Ice

Freeze lemonade into ice cubes: Melting lemonade “ice” won’t dilute the drink.

Add a garnish to each ice cube compartment: a piece of citrus peel, a mint leaf, a cherry (dried, fresh or maraschino).

Crack the ice cubes into smaller pieces with an ice crusher. Some people own ice crushers or blenders that crush ice; we use a manual tool like this.

Hold the ice cube in your hand and hit it with the crusher end. (NOTE: Smaller pieces of ice melt faster than whole cubes, so if your lemonade is at room temperature, you’ll want to keep the ice cubes whole.)

2. Other “Formats”

Float: Add scoops of sorbet to a tall glass of watermelon lemonade. We couldn’t find watermelon sorbet, so we tried lemon, orange and raspberry. They all work.

Slushie: The same ingredients as a float plus ice cubes/cracked ice, lightly pulsed in a blender.

Fruit Soup: For a refreshing dessert or snack, dice or slice any fresh fruits and place them in a mound in the center of a soup bowl. Pour the lemonade (plain or flavored)around the fruit. Garnish with optional chopped mint or basil.

3. Flavored Lemonade

You can flavor the lemonade or set out a “flavor bar” so guests can add their own:

Fruit Juice: blueberry juice, cherry juice, lime juice, pomegranate juice.

Fruit Purée: berry purée, mango purée, peach purée.

Flavored sweeteners: Infuse simple syrup with fruit juice (blueberry, raspberry, strawberry), sliced chiles. ginger, organic lavender, etc.

Flavored spirits: Spirits: flavored rum, Limoncello or other fruit liqueur, saké, tequila, vodka.

4. Sweeteners

For a zero-calorie drink, use non-caloric sweetener.

For a low-glycemic drink, use agave nectar.

Varying the garnishes makes the recipe “new” each time.

5. Garnishes

Berry picks

Fresh herbs: basil, mint, rosemary, e.g.

Wheels or wedges: cucumber, lemon, lime, orange

6. One Glass Or One Pitcher

If you don’t want to squeeze lemons every time you feel like lemonade, you can do a “bulk squeeze” and freeze the lemon juice in ice cube trays.

Or, do what our busy mom did and stir a heaping spoon of frozen lemonade concentrate into ice water.

Here’s what you need for a 64-ounce pitcher.

RECIPES: FLAVORED & SPECIALTY LEMONADE

Frozen Lemonade Recipe

Lavender Lemonade Recipe

Peach Lemonade Recipe

Raspberry Lemonade Smoothie Recipe

Red, White & Blueberry Lemonade Recipe

Sparkling Melon Lemonade

Spicy Lemonade Recipe

Strawberry Basil Lemonade Recipe

Watermelon Mint Lemonade Recipe

ADULT LEMONADE RECIPES

Blueberry Lemonade Cocktail Recipe

Fizzy Sambuca Lemonade Recipe

Lemonade 485 Cocktail Recipe

Limoncello Lemonade Recipe

London Lemonade (Gin Cocktail)

Saké Lemonade Recipe

Tequila Lemonade Recipe

Cucumber Lemonade
[1] Add your favorite flavor counterpoints, from berries to cucumber. Muddle as desired (photo courtesy True Food Kitchen | Facebook).
Jalapeno Lemonade
[2] Some like it hot: They can add some jalapeño slices or other hot and spicy ingredients (photo courtesy Melissa’s).

Lemonade With Zest Rim
[3] Add a tart-and-sweet rim: lemon or lime zest, plain or mixed with sugar (photo courtesy Saint Marc Pub-Café).

Rosemary Lemonade
[4] Garnish with your favorite herbs. We like the counterpoint of basil, mint or rosemary (photo courtesy Fig & Olive).

Strawberry Lemonade
[5] Toss berries and herbs into the pitcher (photo courtesy Cocina De Color Lila).

Blackberry Lemonade

[6] Summer’s fresh blackberries or huckleberries are another great lemonade pairing (photo courtesy Izakaya Den | Denver).

[7] Citron vodka substitutes for most of the lemon juice—but we’re not complaining (photo courtesy Haru Sushi).

RECIPE: WATERMELON LEMONADE COCKTAIL

This recipe from Haru uses more citron vodka than lemon juice, but the combination of ingredients is a winner.

Ingredients Per Drink

5 fresh watermelon cubes

1½ oz. citron-infused vodka

½ ounce St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur (also great in sparkling wines)

¾ ounce lemon juice

½ ounce thyme-infused simple syrup (recipe below)

Ice cubes

Garnish: thyme and lemon peel

For The Thyme Simple Syrup

2 cups water

1 cup sugar

2 fresh thyme sprigs

Preparation

1. MAKE the thyme simple syrup. Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the thyme sprigs. Let steep for 10 minutes; then cool to room temperature before using.

2. MUDDLE the watermelon cubes in a mixing glass. Add the remaining ingredients ice and shake vigorously for 8-10 seconds.

e. POUR into an ice-filled glass. Garnish and serve.

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