I have always been intrigued with people overseas when they make lemonade. I didn’t grow up drinking lemonade. I grew up drinking homemade gingerbeer.

I hated that gingerbeer drink so much, and my granny would make liters of it and store in the fridge. The entire fridge would be full of those 2 liter bottles filled with fizzy brown gingerbeer.

Oh hot days, when you opened the fridge, those bottle would look so thirst quenching and then one sip and I would just die from that bitter after taste. I never saw her making it, I never even saw her collecting those 2 liter bottles, but they would just magically appear in the fridge.

Many years after her passing, when I inherited her cookbooks, did I eventually come across the recipe, it contained ginger and yeast and when my parents caught me reading the recipe they were ready to tear up the book. I take it from their reaction that they are not fans. I can already picture their responses, it will most likely give my mother indigestion and my father heart burn and they will be crying and pleading with me to never make it again.

Gingerbeer was my granny’s thing, and of late homemade lemonade is my thing.

Pre covid, I would make lemonade every other day. When my Uncle was still alive and he found out I had made lemonade he would demand the entire bottle to take home. A few days before he passed on he dropped off a pocket of lemons , wanting me to make lemon pickle and lemonade for him. I was busy with my own things and just put it off till the weekend, moaning to my mother that he was adding more work to my currently over flowing plate and then Friday night everything changed and the weekend never came and those lemons went frot and my dad got rid of them.

I did however make sure that every night for his service there was a massive glass of lemonade to pray with and everyone fought over who was going to drink it, because every opportunity my Uncle got, he would rave about this lemonade that he loved so much.

I have tried a few different lemonades throughout lockdown, but with the ability to shop at my own pace and roam aimlessly down the aisles. There has just been no excitement to try new things.

One of our farm customers, brought me a few of his lemons as a thank you for sorting something out for him and I left in the fruit basket and forgot about them, till my mother decided to ask me at 5am if I was going to use those lemons or must she throw them out before they create fruit flies.

I was going to make my go to lemonade but then I came across this recipe on Instagram.

The creator of this lemonade is the same lady who created the Instagram sensation dish that took the world by storm. The baked feta pasta dish was her dish and after that I have been following her and trying out her other recipes, which I must say are super easy to make and super delicious. She is also the mastermind behind the air fryer pasta chips, but because I don’t own a air fryer, I cannot give my personal expert opinion on that particular recipe.

I really did think that this recipe would result in extremely sweet lemonade; it consisted of both castor sugar and condensed milk. I was greatly mistaken, it wasn’t overly sweet, it had the perfect sweetness to balance out the sourness of the lemons.

Verdict, I loved it, my mother said it was too sour, her teeth were pulling just looking at the drink and my father, “ How must he know, he can’t even remember what his drinking.”

At the rate my father is going with all his whatsapp groups, I plan on burying with his phone, seeing as I talk and talk till I am blue in the face and he doesn’t remember a single word that comes out of my mouth and when I don’t talk then he sulks like a 5 years old complaining that I am moody.

In case anyone was wondering, I loved this recipe and yes I would drink it again if I made it and yes I am aware that it is raining cats and dogs outside and temperatures are at 8 degrees and I making an iced drink.

Ingredients:

• Juice of 4 lemons.
• ¼ x cup castor sugar.
• ¼ x cup condensed milk.
• 2 x lemons, sliced.
• 2 x cups ice.
• 2 x cups water.

Method:

• Place all the ingredients, expect the lemon slices, into a jug.
• Using a spoon, stir and mix till all the sugar has dissolved
• Add in the lemon slices, give a few more stirs.
• Pop into the fridge to chill for a few hours before serving.