Sun, Sun, Beautiful Sun - Fresh Lemonade Syrup

We all ran around in shock on Sunday afternoon. A previously shy sun shone and we revelled in the joy/bedlam/disaster and noise of a dozen near five year olds.

In preparation for this moment, the sun shining for the first time in a month, I needed something delicious and thirst-quenching. Something a little sweet but not teeth-rotting. Something that tastes like sunny days, and I don't mean sunscreen and sandy hand mauled sandwiches. Pimm's No. 1 Cup, while perfectly fitting the delicious and thirst-quenching order, isn't perfectly suited to five year olds for obvious reasons. While the non-heavy machinery operating adults quaffed their Pimm's, those in charge of vehicles and the children would need to drink something else.

My grandmother used to make a lemonade syrup, the recipe was handed down and my mother made it for us. That was back in the day when I thought that a certain powdered beverage, often electric blue, to which you add sugar and water was the ultimate in cool person drinks. So, something as homemade as lemonade made from a syrup, which didn't get squeezed from a plastic container, was not something high on my street cred growing list.

Years pass and then the very same lemonade syrup, or one very similar, shows up at the summer market and it lights a little fire in the back of my brain and I get to thinking, this is probably much easier than summer market chappy is making it out to be with his 'secret recipe' and 'even more secret ingredient' chatter.

Turns out that it really is and after wading around on the internet in a 'there is how much sugar in that' eye-bulging anxiety attack, and with a very little experimentation, I came up with this and I think it is pretty good.

 

I like it to have the pulp left in, so I did. You could strain it but, I think, you'll be sacrificing lemony goodness. I suggest, if you don't have a self-straining juicer, to juice everything into a measuring cup and then strain the seeds out, you can push the pulp through with the juice.

This is just as delicious with some club soda and muddled mint leaves and heck, while you're there you may as well just chuck a little white rum or vodka in and celebrate the sunshine with a lemon mojito. Not that I would ever do anything like that.

Lemonade Syrup (makes about three pints)

3 cups sugar

1 cup water

1/4 cup lemon zest  

juice of 18 lemons (about 3 1/2 cups)

Bring sugar, water and lemon zest to a boil and let cool.

When cool, stir in lemon juice. Transfer to a clean bottle and refrigerate. 

Mix to taste.

Drink. 

Riding a Bicycle was Never so Tasty

Years ago, in the days before children, I used to drink cocktails at the cocktail hour. I didn’t have to worry about supper for small girls or bath time or whether I should be drinking and nursing. All I had to worry about was what to wear with my new shoes.

Sometimes they were called sundowners. Sometimes they were called aperitifs. Sometimes they were drunk in a bar or a café overlooking a busy street or a beach. Sometimes they were drunk in a tiny, crowded and way too smoky, but back in the day I didn’t notice, hole in the wall bar. Sometimes they were drunk in the cockpit or on the bow of a boat. Sometimes they were drunk in the crew mess. 

The cocktails were occasionally margaritas or daquiris or martinis. More often, it was a beer or a glass of wine. Sometimes, depending on where the cocktail was being drunk, it was a delicious mix of Campari and something else.  A negroski or an americano or just a Campari and soda or grapefruit, any of them made the cocktail hour a little more satisfactory. You can even buy pre-mixed Campari Soda in little bottles in Italy, how civilized is that?

Someone once made me La Bicyclette. I had never had one and was sold as soon as I found out what was in it. Campari, white wine, club soda and lemon. I hadn’t even tasted it but I knew I would love it and I did. Refreshing and delicious and just a little bit fruity, not too bitter, not too sweet. The sweetness is easily adjusted by wine choice, the strength by soda quantity. I think that, strictly speaking, it should probably only have a splash of soda but these days I need one drink to last a long time or I’ll be asleep before bath time.

I know that Campari is not everyone’s favourite taste. Big Daughter saw my La Bicyclette this evening and her eyes lit up. She coyly asked for a sip expecting, I think, something tasting like toxic pink freezie. She was not at all impressed and informed me, ‘it is 32 yucky.’ I know that, on her scale of yuckiness, earwigs are a 34 yucky so I am guessing she has decided against Campari for the foreseeable future. Oh well, more for me.

I chose a wine that has some sweetness but not so much that we won’t drink it on its own. Valley Roads L’Acadie Muscat is not bone dry and has a bit of tropical fruit and citrus which always taste good with Campari. I also like to think it Nova Scotiafies this little tipple. 

La Bicyclette (makes one tasty cocktail)

2 ounces* Campari

2 ounces white wine (chose a sweeter wine, if you prefer sweeter drinks)

4 ounces club soda (it should probably only have about 1 ounce, a splash)

A slice or two of lemon

Ice cubes

Mix the Campari and wine together** and pour over ice and lemon in a wine glass. Top with club soda. Drink.

*or just use 1/4 cup if you, like me, don't seem to have a shot glass.

**if you want to get all fancy, you could use a shaker but I think a spoon and glass are just fine here.