Well balanced combination of fresh herbs and seasonal fruits makes these lemonades an irresistible summer treat.
The lemonade looked great, smelled sweet, and was cold and refreshing with the added benefit of being 100% pure and fresh. Each lemonade has a few whole pieces of fruit as an addition to the mix.
It’s June here and my herb garden is growing really fast. Over the weekend, I’ve been wondering what to do with all these freshly grown herbs.
Well while I was lounging on my terrace on this summer hot afternoon, my kids came running in panting for a drink. It was indeed sweltering outside, but they didn’t want any ordinary water, but something sweet, yet also refreshing, like lemonade. Making herbal lemonades is one of my favorite summer activities.
We don’t have any soft drinks at home and I didn’t want to give them anything too sweet anyway. So I decided to experiment a little and combine my fresh garden herbs with sweet summer fruits and make refreshing homemade lemonade.
The lemonade looked great, it smelled sweet and was cold and as refreshing with the added benefit of being 100% pure and fresh. Each lemonade has a few whole pieces of fruit as an addition to the mix. the strawberry and blueberry ones were the most popular because they were left with a few berries to munch on when they finished drinking their lemonade! Lately, I tried peaches and they taste great when infused with water.
Lemonade origin
Lemonade originates from India and consists of lemon, sugarcane and water. Nowadays we use this term for any kind of fruit mixed with water or sparkling water with or without sugar. The word lemonade is easy to pronounce and sounds refreshing. In our culture, we call the coldest fruit and watery drinks lemonade. What would you call a drink made from Strawberries? Strawberrade? So for our drinks made of 4 different fruits and herbs, we will stick with the word lemonade even though they have nothing to do with the original lemonade drink.
These lemonades are only made from fruits and herbs but feel free to add some honey or elderflower syrup if you feel you need to add some sweetness to it. Alternatively, you can mix them with sparkling water. Make sure you serve them cold, ideally with a few ice cubes.
Another way to make a refreshing summer drink is to blend the fruits in the blender and make a slushy, like this with watermelon.
To have more intensive herb flavor you can place the herbs in the water first, leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving it with fresh fruits.
Fruits and herbs combinations:
I had tried various combinations before landing on these 4 as these mixes tasted the best. Here are they:
- orange and basil
- lemon and verbena
- blueberry and mint
- strawberry and thyme
Yum! These sound wonderful! I”ll for sure be trying out the orange basil this week! I”ll let ya know how I did . Thank you for sharing these.
Oh my goodness, these sound so wonderful! I’ll be trying these for sure!
All these combinations sound so refreshing!
We are just heading into summer so I’m so glad I stumbled on this post. These look yummy and do pretty. Thank you ?
These look so refreshing! I think the strawberry and thyme one sounds intriguing! My son will be all about the blueberry and mint one!
Omg these sound so yummy!! I will definitely be making these for my family… And my guilty pleasure is a healthy cocktail so I might even add some vodka for myself aha (shhhh!)
These all look so delicious. We’re heading into Fall but I’m definitely pinning these for next year. Orange and basil will be at the top of my list.