Sazerac Lemonade

Life has recently thrown me a lot of lemons-- literally. When I went home for spring break I did a bunch of yardwork for my dad and he's been using his tree's Meyer lemons to make lemonade. He wasn't doing anything special, he was just mashing a Meyer into his crystal light to give it some sparkle.

I ended up taking a bunch of lemons home to Davis. Howard brought some regular but ginormous lemons back too and we conducted a bit of a trade. Thus, a couple of nights ago I decided to make some lemonade of my own. I'd been thinking about the flavors for awhile and here's the recipe I came up with.

1 Regular Lemon (sliced across the segments)
Sugar to taste
Water
1 capful Pastis (or other anise-based liquor)
3 dashes Angostura Bitters

Muddle the lemon with the sugar in a measuring cup, adding sugar until the balance is about right. Strain out resulting juice into your iced glass, add water to the measuring cup and repeat until the strained lemonade is the right concentration. Balancing sugar, lemon and water can be tricky. I added some commercial lemonade to even things out. If you're going to be drinking this while doing heavy physical labor, add a pinch of salt. Once you've added the Pastis and bitters it is ready to drink.

I love the Meyer lemon, but its warmth and richness doesn't lend itself to the quenching nature of lemonade. Pastis is watered down and sweetened in France as a refreshing summer drink of its own, but I think Pastis is better suited to a supporting role in drinks. That anise comes across pretty strong. Adding bitters to lemonade is nothing new, but I think it provides the accent needed to make the anise work.

You can tell this recipe owes more to my mixology background than a Betty Crocker cookbook. The ingredient list actually bears considerable resemblance to the Sazerac Cocktail. I'm counting this among my drink posts, but the alcohol content is negligible. For those of you who may be disappointed by that, I recommend dolloping in some whiskey. Bourbon would be classic and Rye wouldn't do badly either.