1Hello! this is chef John from foodwishes.com with... "state fair" lemonade.
2That's right! I am very excited to be showing you how to make real authentic vintage lemonade,
3the kind you might enjoy in a hot summer day at one of those stands at the state fair,
4maybe while you're not on a corn dog or funnel cake.
5And while everybody thinks they've had lemonade before,
6unless you've had it made using this method, you actually have not.
7Not even close.
8So with that, let's go ahead and get started.
9And what we're gonna need here are six of the finest lemons you can find,
10which I've washed very thoroughly.
11And if yours seem kind of waxy you might want to give them a pretty good scrub under hot water.
12Since the whole key to this recipe is using the peel.
13And what we'll do first is take a vegetable peeler
14and peel the zest completely off all these lemons.
15Right, not too too deep. Mostly we just want the yellow part.
16But if there's a little bit of white attached, that's totally fine.
17And 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,
18well, this recipe is gonna show you why.
19Okay, most of us just make lemonade out of lemon juice
20but as you might know, the oils in the lemon peel contain a tremendous amount of lemon flavor.
21And if we can somehow extract that and add it to the flavor of the juice,
22we're gonna end up with something far superior.
23So, what we'll do is peel all those lemons as shown
24and of course we're gonna save those, so we can cut them in half and squeeze them later.
25And then to our bowl of lemon peels,
26we're gonna go ahead and dump in our white granulated sugar.
27And then we'll give that a thorough mix.
28And what's gonna happen here, as this sits, is that sugar is gonna pull out all those essential oils from the peel.
29And then we will use the sugar to sweeten our lemonade
30thereby introducing all that lemony goodness into our drink.
31So, a very simple trick but devastatingly effective.
32So once we have that mixed what we'll do is cover it
33and we'll let it sit out from anywhere between 2 and 12 hours.
34In a little longer it's probably better but 2 hours is fine.
35At which point your sugar and lemon should look something like this.
36And what this mixture is actually called by ancient Romans
37or contemporary Williamsburg bartenders is Oleo Saccharum
38which, yes, translates to oily sugar.
39And then what we'll do next is place five cups of cold fresh water over high heat.
40And we will bring that up to a boil
41and then just as soon as that water starts to boil,
42we will turn off the heat and transfer in our sugar and lemon mixture.
43And we'll go ahead and give that a stir.
44And then we'll simply let it sit there for about five minutes or so,
45or until all that sugar is dissolved.
46At which point we're simply gonna strain it back into the bowl.
47And man, do I wish you could smell this.
48This stuff smells so good.
49And then the only thing this needs to finish it off is of course our fresh lemon juice,
50which we do not want to squeeze in while this is really hot.
51Otherwise I think we might lose some of that bright fresh lemon flavor.
52So what we'll do after straining is just let this cool down to room temp.
53At which point then it's safe to go ahead and squeeze in our lemons,
54which I'm just gonna do by hand through this strainer.
55Although if you have one of those lemon squeezers like I usually use, that might work out even better.
56But anyway the strainer was right here, so I used the manual method.
57And obviously if you want to adjust the amount of sugar or the amount of lemon, go ahead!
58I mean you are after all the Mr Kincaid of your state fair lemonade.
59And it's up to you to manage your family's business,
60beverage related or otherwise.
61So you're definitely allowed to tweak the amounts.
62And I've been known to squeeze in a little extra fresh lemon juice because I like mine tangy.
63And that's it! Once our fresh lemon juice has been squeezed in,
64we can transfer everything into a serving pitcher.
65At which point, I like to cover it and refrigerate it until very very well chilled.
66Alright, if you pour this over ice now
67and it's not super cold, it's gonna melt the ice and maybe water down your drink.
68So, I'm gonna go ahead and pop this in the fridge for a while.
69After which we can pull it out
70and pour it over some ice
71and then we'll enjoy probably the greatest lemonade you've ever tasted.
72Alright, we have that tangy fresh lemon flavor from the juice
73along with that much deeper more intense more complex flavor from the lemon oil,
74which is what makes this a truly extraordinary beverage.
75So I think we need to update that saying:
76"when life gives you lemons peel them first toss them in sugar and then make lemonade".
77Oh yeah, words to live by!
78Although there is one small problem I should warn you about,
79and that's that: once you start drinking lemonade made like this
80it is virtually impossible to go back drinking it how you used to.
81And you're gonna need a really good poker face when your friend hands you a glass of that non-authentic lemonade
82because even though you're gonna be smiling and say thanks,
83your eyes and body language might be communicating "this is not everything it could be".
84At which point their eyes might communicate: "just drink it and stop looking at me like that".
85But anyway that's it:
86how to make that awesome old-fashioned lemonade that you get at those stands at the state fair.
87Since pretty much all those have been cancelled this year,
88we thought the timing was perfect for showing you how to do this.
89Which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon.
90So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
91a printable written recipe and much more info as usual.
92And as always... enjoy!