Best lemonade recipe? Ever? That's a tall order—about as tall as a towering, icy pitcher full of perfectly tart, sweet, lemony...we digress. Basically, what we're trying to say is that we spent lots of (extra-sticky) time testing out different methods of making lemonade, to find the absolute best.
The secret, it turns out, is lemon-sugar. Also known around these parts as Cheaters' Oleo Saccharum. The real thing—oleo saccharum proper—has you muddle together citrus peels and sugar for several hours until the mixture turns to liquid syrup. Our Cheaters' version is a little quicker: you rub lots of strips of lemon zest directly into granulated sugar, and let it all hang out for an hour. By the time you make your simple syrup with the sugar and zest, the sugar's infused with an intensely bright flavor that'll make your lemonade that much more lemony. And the pinch of kosher salt you'll add toward the end? Icing on the...pitcher.
A few notes, as indicated by asterisks below:
*Use a vegetable peeler to get the lemon’s zest in long strips. The longer, the better—as in, the easier to pluck out of simple syrup, later. Avoid pressing too hard with the peeler; you’re looking for strips of the golden yellow peel, but want to avoid the bitter white stuff below it, which can make your simple syrup taste bitter.
**Our preferred method for getting the most juice out of a fresh lemon? Roll each whole lemon a few times on the countertop before halving. —Ella Quittner
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