Easy, peasy, lemon sqeezy

I remember pretty well our first visit to Texas. It was hot, people were friendly and relaxed and there was yummy homemade lemonade served everywhere. In good old Germany we are lucky to be able to drink our tap water without hesitation but I have to admit that I tend to drink not enough when the water is unflavored (no discussion about sugar, please). Therefore, I already started last year to produce my very own syrup. Pretty awesome in combination with our water carbonator and saved me from lifting tons of soda crates. Moreover, I know exactly what's in my glass.

In the wintertime I started very basic with simple lemon syrup - many thanks to my mum in law who gifted me a citrus press for my beloved gadget that aids me in my kitchen (I am not sure if I have to mark this as advertisement if I name the brand, but I guess you get the picture…) I always cook the syrup 1:1 which means 1 liter liquid and 1 kilo sugar (sorry, metric system in Germany). It's as simple as that: press the lemons, and from 12 fruits I usually gain 600 to 700 ml lemon juice which I fill up with water to 1 liter. My citrus press has some kind of sieve to catch the pips but some pulp definitely passes the thing which doesn't bother me at all. Add the sugar, stir, boil for 10 minutes, fill into bottles. I tested brown sugar and conventional white sugar and liked both. When using brown sugar the syrup turns into golden caramel, otherwise it stays lemony yellow. This is my latest batch:

 

Afterwards I experimented with different fruits (for example rhubarb with vanilla) but it was a little too time-consuming. For Christmas I even made some cinnamon syrup but primarily as a coffee flavor or to pour over waffles. But lastly I always ended with lemon.

But as I mentioned in my very first post, I also tried mint syrup. A good friend of mine introduced me to this and I remembered a hint of lemon in it and that combination is utterly awesome. It takes a bit more time but isn't complicated and totally worth the effort. I made a simple syrup as explained before (1 liter water, 1 kilo sugar), added two little bags of citric acid and the juice from one lemon (that's all I had and the citric acid was left over from jam making). The last peppermint from my backyard I picked from the stems (roughly a salad bowl - German size, not Texan…) and poured the syrup over it. I let the concoction sit for about 3 days, brought it about to boil again and that's it!