Drinks
Strawberry Lemonade
Prep time: 5 min / Total Time: 5 min
Quickest and easiest refreshing drink for this hot season.
Equipment
- blender
Ingredients
- 450 g strawberries
- 5 lemons
- 100 g sugar
- 300 ml water
- mint leaves (for garnish)
- ice cubes (to serve)
Instructions:
1. Wash and drain the strawberries and put them in a blender. Squeeze the lemon juice in the same container together with the sugar and water.
2. Blend everything together until smooth. You can strain the juice through a fine mesh sieve to remove any bits or seeds, if you prefer.
3. Pour into glasses filled with ice and serve garnished with mint leaves and any extra fruit left. Enjoy!
Is summer really over?
You’re hot, then you’re cold….you’re yes, then you’re no…good song, also known as the national weather anthem in the UK.
The summer of ‘23 has been (or still is?) one of the strangest seasons, with the longest cold periods and the hottest temperatures ever seen in England and I believe across the globe.
We’ve been able to travel a few times this year, starting strongly with Madeira which is nothing short of a life changing holiday, then we went to Amsterdam to hear Hanz Zimmer’s live concert in the Ziggo Dome and again, what an amazing experience, both of us were silent throughout each song and then took another breath to get ready for more.
What does any of this have to do with today’s story? Well the theme is conflict here, hot or cold, pink or blue, up or down, we’ve had these feelings throughout the entire summer because for some reason all the places we’ve visited in the last few years are seriously lacking a good, refreshing and fruity drink for the summer.
You can’t add a squirt of lemon in a glass and call it lemonade, let’s get that out of the way. And squeezing a tiny raspberry in a glass and slapping a slice of strawberry on top as garnish, buddy, hate to break it to ya, that ain’t no summer drink.
So we’ve had enough and took matters into our own hands, sort of like Thanos if you know the guy.
Summer starts with an S and you know what else starts with an S? Satiety, damn it! Why do we go to a bar and ask for a drink that’s half of what the expectation was? Only to find ourselves either going for something else on the menu or more of the same, just to feel our thirst being satisfied. Enough complaining, time to share our action plan:
Here’s the drill:
– It’s freaking summer – what are your favourite fruits?
– It’s still summer – get that ice ready
– Ice cream taught us a lesson on a really hot day – never get sickly-sweet flavours; get anything citrus-based for an awesome refresh a.k.a. Blood orange, thank me later!
– Got your fruit & ice, it’s time to add water and yes, sometimes a bit of sugar too.
Our summer conquest had to end with a drink that was full of flavour, refreshing and I think what we wanted was some nostalgia too. Somehow I feel like everything tasted better when I was a kid…
Guess what, WE DID IT!
Now this is a basic recipe, you are more than welcome to add your twist to it and make it your own. Blueberries? I’m in! Raspberries? Still in! Orange? Sounds good! Bananas? You can leave now!
But seriously, start off with the fundamentals from above and then start thinking of other fruit you like. We will soon experiment with lychees, grapes, grapefruit, pineapple and see which one will be the winner. There are many paths to victory, but we have now started a summer routine and I believe every summer will mark the beginning of a new war with bars and restaurants, which will inevitably send us right where this started: home.
Home is where the magic happens and we seriously want to hear from your adventures too! (drinks related 😉 ) There is a huge amount of fun to have in the kitchen, either with drinks or food and we find ourselves wanting to try new and exotic ingredients in everything we make, just to see how flavours dance with each other. This war we started is not over, the search for the best summer drink has just begun and if you may have a secret weapon in your arsenal, but sooner or later, we’ll bring out a new shiny drink to rival yours!