My Mother's Lemonade
By: Andrew Kendon
Published: Friday, February 12, 2010 - 8:34am

Ingredients




1 lemon
150 grams Sugar (white or demarara) or sugar and honey
1 liter (4 cups) Water

Preparation

1 Using a vegetable peeler, peel the lemon taking as little white as possible (the white is bitter) 2 Place strips of peel in a heatproof jug 3 Boil water and pour onto peel 4 Allow to steep for five minutes 5 Stir in sugar until dissolved 6 Add the juice of the lemon 7 Serve hot or allow to cool and serve chilled 8 Note: The peel should be kept in the liquid. This adds greatly to the flavour!

About


I'm basing my 'servings' on a 'cup' ... or 250ml wine glass or 1/2 pint mug of the finished product.
This is how my mother made lemonade. She usually made it in winter, as a cold cure (cure for when you come in from making snowmen OR as a cure for when you have a sniffley cold!). There was a wooden spoon she used as a measure (which I have) and a particular white pottery jug/pitcher. I based my measurements on these utensils so I can guarantee that the measures are authentic!
My mother generally used white granulated sugar, because it was the cheapest, but demarara, which is a granulated, light brown sugar, adds some flavour of its own. Don't use dark brown or 'moist' brown sugar: this has too much molasses and kills the top notes of the lemon (from the peel).
If you keep the lemon/sugar ratio constant, you can make a very successful 'lemonade syrup' by using less water ... e,g, 4 lemons, 600g sugar, 1 litre Water will make a syrup that you can dilute 1:4 with ice and sparkling water or with hot water and whisky ... depending on whether you want a 'hot cure' (something to cool you down) or a 'cold cure'! I can vouch for the fact that it works as both!