Herbal lemonades, you ask?  Oh yes, one of my favorite summertime treats!  When I was a kid I used to really dislike lemonade.  I’d rather drink water, if you can imagine that.  Then when I got a little older I found out about lemonade mixed half and half with beer–oh yummy!  Sweet, tart, fizzly and just a little bit alcoholic, it became my number-one-summer-swinging-in-the-backyard-hammock drink.  You should try it with your dandelion beer (see recipe a few posts back)!

From the lemonade/beer experiment,  I moved on to other lemonade ideas.  Iced tea mixed with lemonade is also delicious.  Then my friend Jennephyr showed me her Lavender lemonade and I was lost— hooked on herbal lemonades.

These days, the herbal lemonade I make most often is a combination of siberian ginseng, astragalus, hibiscus and lavender.  See, I really like how astragalus and siberian ginseng make me feel, but I don’t like how they taste.  And I love hibiscus tea, and I love lavender in general.  So… voila!  Combined with a simple lemonade recipe, the delicious flavors of lemon and the other herbs pretty much overpower the sawdusty taste of the ginseng and astragalus, and you get to enjoy your medicine as a treat.

This won’t work with all nasty-tasting herbs, but it seems to work pretty well with these two.

Not too long ago I noticed—I think it was in the Bozeman Chronicle, but I’m not sure—a recipe for ginger lemonade.  I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds fabulous.  Ginger is a warming herb and will help settle your stomach, bring on a sweat in a fever, and improve your circulation.  Lemon is cooling, stimulating to the digestion and stimulates the liver and gall bladder.  So it might seem like in combo these two wouldn’t do so well, but not so!  Think about how your body cools itself when it’s hot out:  you sweat, and in an ideal climate, the liquid from your sweat evaporates on your skin which makes you cool down.  I think Ginger can probably aid in this process by improving the circulation to your peripheral arteries and making you sweat sooner.  So while it might seem more intuitive as a warming winter drink, I think Ginger tea would probably help in summer as well.  Mixed with lemonade, it can’t possibly go wrong!

So how do you make an herbal lemonade?   Easy!  Just make an herbal tea, and use it instead of water in your favorite lemonade recipe.  Try it with all your herbs!  I think Lavender lemonade is far and away my favorite still, though.  I even like lavender lemonade mixed with beer.  Quite a combo.  But very … very … yawn … ah … relaxing.

I throw about 4 tablespoons of lavender flowers into 2 quarts of boiling water.  Steep it 10 minutes then strain the flowers out and mix the tea with honey and lemon juice to taste (I use about a cup of each).  Put lots of ice in it until it’s chilly and somewhat diluted, then drink up!  Also good served with a mint leaf, or a few frozen raspberries floating around in the bottom.

You can use any herbal tea with this recipe.  Try it with Basil! Try it with licorice root!  Ginger!  Sassafrass!  Who knows what great taste sensation you can come up with.  But you don’t have to use my recipe.   You can just run on down to Albertson’s and get one of those cans of frozen lemonade, pop it open and use your herbal tea instead of water when mixing it up.

Before you know it you’re going to be like me, with a constant gallon of strange-colored, sweet-tart delicious liquid in your fridge.

Enjoy!