With warmer weather comes the chance for lots of ice cold drinks. What better warm weather drink than lemonade? Mint, strawberry, and lavender are three easy variations on lemonade that can be made quickly. The best part about these recipes is that they are super simple, so you can change them however you like. Want it sweeter? Want it more sour? Want to spike it with a little vodka? You can change it up and even switch out the flavors and fruits. You could try mangoes, pineapples, cherries, or even experiment with something totally unique.
For the ingredients, fresh mint leaves can be found in the produce section of your grocery store, or you can buy a whole mint plant for around the same price. Dried lavender is a little harder to find; I got mine at a specialty grocery store but it can be found at herbs stores or for very cheap online.
Mint Lemonade
Ingredients
Instructions
Boil the two cups of water then add the sugar and stir until fully dissolved and remove from heat.
Slice up the spearmint leaves into thin slivers and add to the hot water and sugar mixture and stir to fully soak the leaves. If the hot water and sugar mix has cooled too much, you may want to gently heat it up again for one minute so that it is still warm.
Let the mint and hot water steep for 20-30 minutes depending on how minty you want it. If you mint leaves are not very strongly flavored, you may need to add more and leave it in for longer.
Let the mixture cool down and then strain into a pitcher to remove the mint leaves.
Add the extra 5 cups of water and the lemon juice and stir. This is where you can adjust the recipe to your taste with more sugar, water, or lemon.
Add some extra mint leaves and ice and serve.
Strawberry Lemonade
Ingredients
Instructions
Bring the 2 cups of water to a boil then stir in the sugar until fully dissolved.
Cut the strawberries into thin slices then stir them into the hot water and sugar mixture.
Let the strawberries soak in the hot water for 15-25 minutes until they are very soft and the water is a pink color.
Let the strawberry mixture cool and pour into a pitcher.
Add the 5 cups of water and the sugar and mix well.
Serve with ice and garnish with slice strawberries.
Lavender Lemonade
Ingredients
Instructions
Boil the 2 cups of water and stir in the sugar until it dissolves.
Add the dried lavender, and stir it well so that the buds are completely saturated with the hot water. If you want a stronger lavender flavor, then add more lavender.
Let the lavender soak for 30 minutes in the hot water and sugar mixture. Stir a couple times throughout.
Strain the mixture into a pitcher.
Add the rest of the water and the lemon juice and stir well.
Serve with ice and garnish with a sprinkle of lavender buds.