Pink Lemonade

Sometimes the lemonade you buy at the store is pink instead of yellow, because it has a different color of dye in it.

But what if you want to drink patrician lemonade instead of mass-market swill?  Red food coloring is not the answer you’re looking for.

First of all, the basic lemonade recipe (simple syrup is just a 1:1 by volume solution of sugar and water):

Squeeze juice of 1 Lemon (~1.5 oz)

Equal volume simple syrup (~1.5oz)

Build on ice in highball glass,  top with soda water & stir

This is probably better than any other lemonade you’ve ever had, but it’s a vaguely yellowish color, as expected.  2-3 dashes of Angostura bitters will take it to the next level, but unfortunately Angostura is brown and the resulting drink will look like iced tea.

The two good methods of making lemonade pink are Peychaud’s bitters and grenadine.  I make my own grenadine by simmering pomegranate seeds in simple syrup and straining through cheesecloth.  This process leaches the color from the seeds, and the resulting fluid will turn anything, including textiles or lemonade, a purple-pink color.  You can also buy grenadine if you don’t have what it takes to go all the way.  It won’t be as good, sorry.

Peychaud’s bitters are red, unlike Angostura.  They’re milder and more medicinal than the floral/earthy flavor of Angostura, and go better as an additive to the slightly tarter limeade than lemonade.  They will, either way, indubitably turn a drink pink.  In the picture below I did both.

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