Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

Years back I worked at a small burger/gyros joint. One of our best selling items though was the fresh squeezed lemonade, made to order. Well, we squeezed the lemons ahead of time, but each drink was then made up right there for you when you ordered. We also did these for a number of outdoor festivals and such, often going through more than a thousand lemons in a day.

The lemons you get in the grocery store are not the best for juicing, they tend to have really thick skins and can be hard to juice with a press type juicer that we used in the restaurant, but if you are using a reaming style juicer at home, they will work. Try to pick out lemons that seem heavy for their size, that means they have lots of juice. Rolling them on a counter or tabletop, putting some pressure on them before you juice them can help as well. Also, I’ve been doing these quite a bit this year, but I’ve also been using limes for a nice change of taste, plus limes have been a lot cheaper than lemons lately.

To make the lemonade, take the juice from one lemon and put in an approximately 20 ounce glass. Add 3-4 tablespoon of sugar. Yea, it seems like a lot, and I suppose if you like it really sour you can go as little as 2 tablespoons. (If you are doing limeade you can also go down to about 2 tablespoons worth). Roughly fill the glass with ice, and then cold water.

Put another, slightly larger glass over the first, and hold together to get a good seal, and then give the whole thing a good shake and serve! Lean towards using more ice than you would think, the shaking actually melts some of it and helps cool the whole thing down rather nicely.

If you have a bar shaker, put it in there and use that to shake. In the restaurant we used one of those metal cups that ice cream shops use for making malts in. I have a large plastic cup that fits over my 20oz glass rather well, so I use that.

Now, I’ve been drinking a lot of lemon and limeade this summer, so if you do not want to make it one glass at a time, you can put the juice of five-six fruits in a half-gallon container, add a cup of sugar, fill it with water, cap it and shake the whole thing. Keep it in the fridge and pour over a glass of ice when you’re ready.

For entertaining though, the “one glass at a time” method actually seems to make the lemonade taste better.