Lemonade

Lemons reached the New World with Spanish colonists, and sweetened citrus-and-water drinks are far older than the United States — a sweetened lemon-juice drink was sold in Paris by the Compagnie de Limonadiers from 1676, and similar drinks circulated in the medieval Mediterranean and Egypt. The American lemonade stand became a cultural fixture in the nineteenth century; an often-repeated story credits a ten-year-old Edward Bok with running one of the first recorded stands in New York around 1873, though the practice was clearly already spreading. Lemonade also rode the Temperance movement: 'Lemonade Lucy' was the nickname given to Lucy Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, after alcohol was banned at the White House in the late 1870s and lemonade served in its place.

Bright, clean, and bracingly tart, with a sweetness that arrives a beat behind the sour and never quite catches up — that lag is the whole point. Cold enough to ache the teeth, faintly cloudy from the pulp and oils, and finishing with the fragrant bitterness of lemon zest if any peel was muddled in. A good glass is thirst-quenching rather than syrupy.

Balance is everything, and it is a balance of acid against sugar: lemon juice runs around pH 2 to 2.5 and is roughly five to six percent citric acid, while sugar both sweetens and blunts the perception of that acid, so the two are tuned against each other rather than measured. Sugar dissolves slowly in cold water, so it is often dissolved first into a simple syrup (equal parts sugar and hot water) to avoid a gritty, sweet-bottomed pitcher. Rolling and warming the lemons before juicing ruptures more juice sacs for a higher yield, and briefly muddling a little zest releases the aromatic oils held in the peel, deepening the lemon flavor beyond the juice alone.