It’s the season when life may hand you a lemon or two. Across our great land, boughs are laden with yellow beauties just waiting to fulfill their lemony destiny as part of this homemade lemonade or lemon meringue pie. Gear up with a citrus reamer (like this world-famous reamer from Alessi) and get squeezing.
Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1 cup water (for the simple syrup)
1 cup lemon juice (4-6 lemons)
3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)

Method:
1. Make a simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Heat until the sugar has dissolved completely.

2. While the sugar is dissolving, use a citrus reamer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice.

3. Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher (we used this nifty RoyalVKB French Carafe and tumblers). Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate for 30 to 40 minutes before serving and add a little more lemon juice to suit your taste.

For large batches, you can bottle the lemon juice and sugar syrup mixture in an airtight bottle and keep in the fridge, ready to be diluted when the time is right.

Serve with ice, sliced lemons, fresh mint and even a pansy or two.

Download print-friendly recipe.
Try out this great recipe for lemon meringue pie.
Check out the Alessi Salif Citrus Reamer and the RoyalVKB French Carafe.