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"State Fair" Lemonade

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Hello! this is chef John from foodwishes.com with... "state fair" lemonade.
That's right! I am very excited to be showing you how to make real authentic vintage lemonade,
the kind you might enjoy in a hot summer day at one of those stands at the state fair,
maybe while you're not on a corn dog or funnel cake.
And while everybody thinks they've had lemonade before,
unless you've had it made using this method, you actually have not.
Not even close.
So with that, let's go ahead and get started.
And what we're gonna need here are six of the finest lemons you can find,
which I've washed very thoroughly.
And if yours seem kind of waxy you might want to give them a pretty good scrub under hot water.
Since the whole key to this recipe is using the peel.
And what we'll do first is take a vegetable peeler
and peel the zest completely off all these lemons.
Right, not too too deep. Mostly we just want the yellow part.
But if there's a little bit of white attached, that's totally fine.
And if you've ever wondered why the lemonade at those stands at the state fair or the county fairs is so much better than ours,
well, this recipe is gonna show you why.
Okay, most of us just make lemonade out of lemon juice
but as you might know, the oils in the lemon peel contain a tremendous amount of lemon flavor.
And if we can somehow extract that and add it to the flavor of the juice,
we're gonna end up with something far superior.
So, what we'll do is peel all those lemons as shown
and of course we're gonna save those, so we can cut them in half and squeeze them later.
And then to our bowl of lemon peels,
we're gonna go ahead and dump in our white granulated sugar.
And then we'll give that a thorough mix.
And what's gonna happen here, as this sits, is that sugar is gonna pull out all those essential oils from the peel.
And then we will use the sugar to sweeten our lemonade
thereby introducing all that lemony goodness into our drink.
So, a very simple trick but devastatingly effective.
So once we have that mixed what we'll do is cover it
and we'll let it sit out from anywhere between 2 and 12 hours.
In a little longer it's probably better but 2 hours is fine.
At which point your sugar and lemon should look something like this.
And what this mixture is actually called by ancient Romans
or contemporary Williamsburg bartenders is Oleo Saccharum
which, yes, translates to oily sugar.
And then what we'll do next is place five cups of cold fresh water over high heat.
And we will bring that up to a boil
and then just as soon as that water starts to boil,
we will turn off the heat and transfer in our sugar and lemon mixture.
And we'll go ahead and give that a stir.
And then we'll simply let it sit there for about five minutes or so,
or until all that sugar is dissolved.
At which point we're simply gonna strain it back into the bowl.
And man, do I wish you could smell this.
This stuff smells so good.
And then the only thing this needs to finish it off is of course our fresh lemon juice,
which we do not want to squeeze in while this is really hot.
Otherwise I think we might lose some of that bright fresh lemon flavor.
So what we'll do after straining is just let this cool down to room temp.
At which point then it's safe to go ahead and squeeze in our lemons,
which I'm just gonna do by hand through this strainer.
Although if you have one of those lemon squeezers like I usually use, that might work out even better.
But anyway the strainer was right here, so I used the manual method.
And obviously if you want to adjust the amount of sugar or the amount of lemon, go ahead!
I mean you are after all the Mr Kincaid of your state fair lemonade.
And it's up to you to manage your family's business,
beverage related or otherwise.
So you're definitely allowed to tweak the amounts.
And I've been known to squeeze in a little extra fresh lemon juice because I like mine tangy.
And that's it! Once our fresh lemon juice has been squeezed in,
we can transfer everything into a serving pitcher.
At which point, I like to cover it and refrigerate it until very very well chilled.
Alright, if you pour this over ice now
and it's not super cold, it's gonna melt the ice and maybe water down your drink.
So, I'm gonna go ahead and pop this in the fridge for a while.
After which we can pull it out
and pour it over some ice
and then we'll enjoy probably the greatest lemonade you've ever tasted.
Alright, we have that tangy fresh lemon flavor from the juice
along with that much deeper more intense more complex flavor from the lemon oil,
which is what makes this a truly extraordinary beverage.
So I think we need to update that saying:
"when life gives you lemons peel them first toss them in sugar and then make lemonade".
Oh yeah, words to live by!
Although there is one small problem I should warn you about,
and that's that: once you start drinking lemonade made like this
it is virtually impossible to go back drinking it how you used to.
And you're gonna need a really good poker face when your friend hands you a glass of that non-authentic lemonade
because even though you're gonna be smiling and say thanks,
your eyes and body language might be communicating "this is not everything it could be".
At which point their eyes might communicate: "just drink it and stop looking at me like that".
But anyway that's it:
how to make that awesome old-fashioned lemonade that you get at those stands at the state fair.
Since pretty much all those have been cancelled this year,
we thought the timing was perfect for showing you how to do this.
Which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon.
So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
a printable written recipe and much more info as usual.
And as always... enjoy!