Pleasant & Refreshing Peach Lemonade

With summer officially here, having lots of easy and refreshing drink recipes on hand is a must. This easy-peasy, peachy-lemon squeezy lemonade is perfect for any summer occasion; from an elegant picnic to a family BBQ, this recipe is sure to please everyone, every time!

---

Servings: 5-6 cups

Prep Time: 25 min (not including cooling time)

Cook Time: 15 min

Total Time: 40 min

Ingredients:

For the Syrup:

2 1/2 cups of fresh, ripe peaches, diced

1/2 cup of granulated sugar

2 tbsp of lemon zest

1/4 tsp of salt

1 cup water

For the Lemonade:

1 cup of lemon juice, or about 3 large lemons

3-4 cups of water (can adjust according to how strong of a flavour you want)

Ice

*Optional: lemon slices, peach slices, herbs, mint leaves, etc.

Instructions:

1. Add the 2 1/2 cups of diced peaches, 2 tbsp of lemon zest, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 tsp of salt, and 1 cup of water to a large saucepan.

2. Bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the peaches get mushy. Once the peaches are mushy, I like to crush them against the side of the pot with a large spoon to get as much of the juice out as possible.

3. Let the mixture cool for 15-20 minutes, then strain the syrup into a bowl using a fine-mesh sieve. You should have approximately 1/2 - 3/4 cup of syrup.

4. Juice the lemons until you have about 1 cup of juice. I like to use a stand mixer with the flat beater attachment for this as it easily extracts not only the juice but the lemon oils as well. You could use any other means to juice it as well and it will still be fine.

5. Add the ice, syrup, lemon juice, 3-4 cups of water, and any additional ingredients to a pitcher and stir until well combined.

6. Enjoy!

Notes:

• This lemonade will keep up to 1 week in the fridge. The peach syrup has a tendency to fall to the bottom of the pitcher, so simply give it a stir when you see that.

• This recipe can be adapted to fit your taste by adding more or less water or by adding any optional ingredients.

• You can use the peach solids for whatever you like. My husband and I actually like to blend the solids with a margarita mix and ice to make a peach margarita, and it is very tasty.

• This recipe doubles, triples, or quadruples very easily if you want to make enough for a crowd (or lots for yourself :).

---

This recipe came to be because this month’s newsletter focus was to improve our drink-making skills. Lemonade was one of the first drinks that came to mind when we came up with this focus, so I knew I had to develop a perfect recipe to post for you guys. While I was about to do a little recipe testing, I decided to make a simple syrup out of some peaches I had laying around and use that in the lemonade. The result was an elegantly sweet, yet still rustic, soft peach/lemon delicacy that you will taste for yourself when you make this recipe!

*By the way, if you want to see what we focus on each month, please consider subscribing to our newsletter. We send an email once a month giving you guys updates and that is where we have something that we “focus” on each month. The focus could be absolutely anything and in any area that we feel we may need to improve in. At the end of every month, we will give you a summary of how each of us did individually in our focus.

It is a really fun thing that we enjoy doing with you guys! :)

As always, thank you for reading this article, and I hope you try this recipe!

See you next Wednesday!