Lemonade Syrup - the Easy Way

This recipe makes an intensely flavoured syrup from just the quantity of lemons you have on hand. No messing about with fixed measurements. We were working in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa for a while and our rented house had a lemon tree that had bushels of lemons. We were told about this recipe by locals. Its almost too simple but it really works! The quantities shown in the ingredients are only there to give you an idea. The real measures you work out from the directions.

• Ready In: 35 mins
• Serves: 20-100

Ingredients

• 12  lemons
• 1  lb white sugar
• 1  pint water

Directions

1. Read the whole directions FIRST so that you understand why the quantity of ingredients, yields and servings all depend on how many lemons you have when you start!
2. Take a couple of strips of zest from each lemon.
3. Juice the lemons.
4. Measure the volume of lemon juice then set it aside.
5. Put the same volume of water and the same volume of white sugar in a sauce pan with the zest.
6. Having ensured by stirring that sugar is all dissolved bring to boil and boil hard for 5-6 minutes then take off heat.
7. Allow sugar syrup to cool completely.
8. Mix syrup and lemon juice together.
9. Bottle and keep in refrigerator.
10. Mix syrup and chilled water or soda water in ratio of about 1 of syrup to 4- 5 of water/soda for a geniune old fashioned lemonade thirst quencher. (Or vodka and syrup 50/50 for limoncello!).
11. Some may strain the zest out before bottling but we never bothered - it looked attractively homemade.