Peaches and lemons make sense in a pitcher headed for a Labor Day cookout. The ingredient tucked between them is less expected: a chunk of fresh ginger, cooked with the peaches before any lemon juice enters the drink.
The recipe also takes a different route from lemonade made by stirring fruit into lemon juice. Peaches and ginger start on the stove, then get blended, chilled, and strained. Fresh lemon juice comes in at the end, leaving the finished pitcher with peach flavor, tart citrus, and a ginger bite behind both.
Fresh Ginger Goes Into the Peach Base
Two cups of chopped peaches go into a saucepan with four cups of water, sweetener, and a small chunk of fresh ginger. The mixture comes to a boil over medium heat and stays there for three minutes.
Cooking the ginger with the peaches puts its flavor into the same liquid that will become the base of the lemonade. There is no ground ginger or ginger syrup added after the drink is mixed.
Blender Breaks Down the Cooked Peaches
Once the saucepan comes off the heat and the mixture has cooled, everything goes into a blender. The peaches are blended into the liquid rather than left as chunks in the pitcher.
That gives the fruit more contact with the water before the mixture heads to the refrigerator. At this point, the lemon juice still hasn't been added.
Chilling Comes Before Straining
The blended peach and ginger mixture spends an hour in the refrigerator. After chilling, it passes through a mesh strainer.
Straining removes the peach pulp and pieces of ginger, leaving the flavored liquid behind. Guests get the taste of both ingredients without finding fruit pulp or a chunk of ginger at the bottom of the glass.
Lemon Juice Doesn't Go in Until the End
Two-thirds of a cup of lemon juice joins the strained peach liquid after the cooking, blending, and chilling steps are complete.
That order keeps the fresh lemon juice out of the saucepan. The finished drink brings together a cooked peach-ginger base with lemon juice added just before serving.
Double the Batch for a Labor Day Table
The original recipe yields two servings, so a Labor Day party calls for more than one batch. Doubling or tripling it turns the small recipe into a pitcher-sized drink for a barbecue or backyard table.
It also gives late-summer peaches another destination before fall takes over the menu. Instead of another peach pie or cobbler, the fruit ends up in the drink pitcher, with fresh ginger adding the part guests may not expect from peach lemonade.
Leave a Reply