Lemonade

Make homemade lemonade a year-round thirst quencher

Most of us tend to think of lemonade as a seasonal beverage best kept for the warmest days, but lemonade is not just for the summer porch or sidewalk stand! The truth is that there’s absolutely no reason it can’t be a go-to cold drink in any season. Like most homemade things, do-it-yourself lemonade requires more time and effort than the store-bought instant or ready-made varieties. And like most homemade things, the payoff is much greater than the inconvenience of a few extra minutes’ work.

Some of the most significant benefits to making your own lemonade are that, unlike store-bought lemonade, you control the amount of sugar in it; unlike add-sugar instant drink mixes, the juice is natural and full of naturally sourced vitamin C; and unlike either, it’s fresh.

The one downside of this simple beverage of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, water and sugar is that it might take a lot of the sweet stuff to balance out the sour. But there are good alternatives to heaping on the sugar by shovelful. For example, one excellent way to cut both the tartness of lemons and the amount of sugar you add to your lemonade is to try a fruit-juice combo: mix two parts lemon juice with one part orange juice before diluting with water and adding any sugar.