Friday, August 12, 2011

Whole Foods Friday: Put some sparkle in your lemonade

The previous post was long enough, so I decided to make the beverage a separate post today. The same disclaimer applies.

I thought lemonade would make a wonderful and refreshing beverage to go along with both the meat and the fish. To make it a little more festive, why not let it sparkle a bit?

You can make this to taste, depending on the tartness you like, and the amount of fizz that makes you happy. (Aren't fizzy drinks  happy festive drinks, even if there's no celebration?) And to make your drinks even more customizable, you can get your sparkling water in flavors, besides just the plain version. Fun, hmmm?

Even better, you can choose to make this just lemonade, or make it an adult drink. And the lemonade and sparkling water just happened to be going on sale. Convenient, isn't it?

So here's the really interesting part of the drink story. I had originally planned on using limoncello for this drink Lemon on lemon, easy-peasy. But when I got to the Whole Foods liquor store, there was no limoncello - just a lemon cream liqueur which sounded really intriguing, but not what I wanted for this particular beverage.

The reason there was no limoncello available was because the store won't buy anything that contains artificial colors. There are a few products left over from the inventory of the previous store than have artificial coloring, but once those are gone, there won't be any more ordered. There's a limoncello that will be coming in soon that doesn't have any artificial color. It will be a pale yellow instead of the bright yellow that's more common.

So, no limoncello for me. Raspberry would have worked, but I didn't want a pink drink. There are plenty of orange liqueurs, but I decided that it might be more fun to step a little further away from citrus. I almost, almost went with a ginger liqueur. That sounded interesting. But I decided to save that for later. Instead, I went with an organic elderflower liqueur made in Michigan by a company called Thatcher's. It's sweet and lightly floral but not perfumy. A good choice.

Sparkling Lemonade

Santa Cruz Lemonade
365 Sparkling Water
Thatcher's Elderflower liqueur

Fill a tall glass with ice. Add lemonade to about 3/4 full. Top with the sparkling water. For the adults add a splash (or more, if you prefer) of the elderflower liqueur.

Garnish with some sliced lemons, limes or oranges, if you prefer. Stir and serve.

If you prefer an herbal garnish, mint, lavender, rosemary or basil would all work well.

The elderflower liqueur would also be nice in a short glass over ice with just a splash of the sparkling water.
Yum