Recipe: Sparkling Ginger Lemonade

We had a heatwave in Portland, and when the thermometer hit 82, it felt like summer. So it was clearly time to make a hot weather favorite: homemade sparkling ginger lemonade.

This recipe makes two pints of sparkling ginger lemonade.

Also, this was the May drink of the month in my newsletter. Feel free to sign up for my newsletter to receive more drinks of the month directly to your inbox!

Ingredients:

Ginger simple syrup:

½ cup sugar

½ cup water

About 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh ginger

 

Lemonade:

Sparkling water (or still water if you’d prefer!)

Fresh lemons

Ginger Simple Syrup

Ice

 

Preparation:

First, you need to make a ginger simple syrup. Mix the fresh ginger, sugar, and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, taking care to stir regularly. Boil for 5 minutes, then remove the saucepan from heat, cover the pot with a lid, and let the mixture steep for about 20 minutes. Then strain the syrup into a jar or other container, and store it in your refrigerator. This should be good for a week or two; use your best judgment!

Note: you can make a larger serving of ginger simple syrup by doubling or tripling the recipe. Just be sure to keep the 1:1 ratio of sugar and water.

To make the lemonade, squeeze a fresh lemon. I usually use ½ lemon per pint-sized serving of lemonade. Feel free to adjust this to your taste and the potency of your lemons.

Then add a tablespoon of ginger simple syrup. Again, you can add or decrease the syrup depending upon how spicy-sweet you’d like your drink to be.

Stir the lemon and syrup together.

Finally, carefully pour the sparkling water into the lemonade, and stir gently. Tip your glass to the side as your pour in the sparkling water to keep the water from foaming up. Let the foam settle, then add a couple of ice cubes.

Add an optional quarter of a lemon, and enjoy!