Ingredients: lemons, white granulated sugar, cold fresh water · 125 min cook time · 150kcal · ~₩7,000
Instructions
1. Take a vegetable peeler and peel the zest completely off all the lemons. Don't go too deep; mostly, we just want the yellow part. If there's a little bit of white attached, that's totally fine. This recipe will show you why the lemonade at state fairs is so much better.
2. Most of us just make lemonade out of lemon juice, but the oils in the lemon peel contain a tremendous amount of lemon flavor. If we can somehow extract that and add it to the flavor of the juice, we're going to end up with something far superior. So, peel all those lemons as shown.
3. To our bowl of lemon peels, we're going to go ahead and dump in our white granulated sugar. Then, we'll give that a thorough mix. What's going to happen here is, as this sits, the sugar is going to pull out all those essential oils from the peel. Then, we will use this sugar to sweeten our lemonade, thereby introducing all that lemony goodness into our drink. It's a very simple trick, but devastatingly effective.
4. Once we have that mixed, we'll cover it and let it sit out for anywhere between 2 and 12 hours. A little longer is probably better, but 2 hours is fine. At which point, your sugar and lemon should look something like this. This mixture is actually called, by ancient Romans or contemporary Williamsburg bartenders, Oleo-Saccharum, which translates to "Oily Sugar."
5. Next, place 5 cups of cold fresh water over high heat and bring it up to a boil. Just as soon as that water starts to boil, turn off the heat and transfer in our sugar and lemon mixture. Go ahead and give that a stir. Let it sit there for about 5 minutes or so, or until all that sugar is dissolved.
6. At which point, we're simply going to strain it back into the bowl. This stuff smells so good! The only thing this needs to finish it off is, of course, our fresh lemon juice, which we do not want to squeeze in while this is really hot. Otherwise, we might lose some of that bright fresh lemon flavor. So, after straining, let this cool down to room temp.
7. At which point, it's safe to go ahead and squeeze in our lemons. I'm just going to do it by hand through this strainer. Although, if you have one of those lemon squeezers like I usually use, that might work out even better. Anyway, the strainer was right here, so I used the manual method. Obviously, if you want to adjust the amount of sugar or the amount of lemon, go ahead. You are, after all, the master of your state fair lemonade. It's up to you to manage your family's business, beverage-related or otherwise. So, you're definitely allowed to tweak the amounts. I've been known to squeeze in a little extra fresh lemon juice because I like mine tangy.
8. Once our fresh lemon juice has been squeezed in, we can transfer everything into a serving pitcher. At which point, I like to cover it and refrigerate it until very, very well chilled. If you pour this over ice now and it's not super cold, it's going to melt the ice and maybe water down your drink. So, I'm going to go ahead and pop this in the fridge for a while. After which, we can pull it out and pour it over some ice.
9. Then, we'll enjoy probably the greatest lemonade you've ever tasted. We have that tangy, fresh lemon flavor from the juice, along with that much deeper, more intense, more complex flavor from the lemon oil, which is what makes this a truly extraordinary beverage. So, I think we need to update that saying: "When life gives you lemons, peel them first, toss them in sugar, and then make lemonade." Oh yeah, words to live by.