The August holidays will soon be upon us. It’s vacation time for those attending various educational institutions, and if you are of a certain age, you will recall the August holidays being rife with outdoor activities – climbing trees, picking fruits and eating them to our heart’s content, playing gam (marbles), hopscotch, and running our own Olympic-style races. In between all of these activities, gallivanting, and working up a sweat, we’d pop home, or to our friends’ home, or some auntie-neighbour house and slake our thirst with a tasty homemade fruit drink from the bounty of the season.
Getting back to basics by making homemade fruit drinks, allows us to do a number of things: control the amount of sugar consumed; save some money from the increased taxes on soft drinks; and provide some nutrients through the use of the variety and bounty we are privileged to have in these parts.
Homemade Pineapple Drink can be made with the skin alone or with the fruit itself (Photo by Cynthia Nelson)
There was a time when all the sweet drinks we consumed were homemade; they came from pitchers and jugs, but more importantly we could taste the flavour of the fruits from which the drinks were made. Earlier in the week I had a refreshing fruit drink made of passionfruit, infused with charred cinnamon and a charred slice of orange. While the flavours worked well together, what stood out for me was the clean, natural taste of the individual fruits. With each sip you could distinguish each component that made it a whole. It was made from scratch.
These days, many of the fruit drinks, juices and squashes consumed come from a can, carton, package or bottle. Some are made from fruit concentrates while others are artificially flavoured and coloured. I am not knocking anyone’s choice. However, just so that we do not lose our sense of taste for fruits, or the opportunity to introduce these flavours to a younger generation, how about challenging ourselves this August holiday to abandon the cans, cartons, packages and bottles. Instead, let’s stock up on fruits, and make our own fruity drinks. Bring out the pitchers and jugs along with some glasses or buy some disposable cups. Make the drinks to re-introduce yourself and your children (even the adult ones) to the flavours of fruity drinks. If you are not into fruity drinks yourself, then make them for the children around your area who come out to play.
Here are some tips and advice to employ:
● In addition to pitchers and jugs, there are large, long drink bottles with airtight caps that can be used to store drinks. And almost everyone has reusable water bottles that they take with them wherever they go. The bottles with their airtight caps make for easy shaking as some fruit drinks tend to settle as they chill.
● Make a large batch of simple syrup or a couple of flavoured batches. While adding the sugar directly is effective, using simple syrup means that you can make the drinks using ice or cold water and not have to worry about the sugar not melting to sweeten the drinks.
● Simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water, stirred over medium heat, brought to a boil, simmered for 1 minute and then removed from the heat to cool completely.
● It can be stored in an airtight bottle at room temperature or in a refrigerator. Things like bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, orange zest and ginger are perfect for flavoring simple syrups. Having different and complementary flavours also means that it is not necessary to add essence to your fruit drinks.
● Make extra ice and store it in the freezer. Once the ice trays are frozen, remove the ice cubes and place them into a freezer plastic bag. Refill the trays with water to make ice and repeat this action a couple of times during the day so that you always have a stock of ice on hand.
● You might want to consider making fruit ice cubes so that when added to the drinks, the drinks do not water down. To do this, take some of the fruit drink you made and pour it into ice trays to freeze and harden. If you are watching your sugar intake, pour the fruit juice into the ice trays before sweetening the drink, this way, you don’t have added sweetness when you pop them into the glass/drink.
● Flavour add-ins though not necessary elevate fruit drinks making them exceptional. Fresh sprigs of herbs such as rosemary, basil, thyme and mint are perfect add-ins. You can do the addition 1 of 2 ways – puree a teaspoon of the chopped leaves along with the fruit or add the sprigs or leaves whole to the drink and let it steep in the mixture for at least an hour before serving. It is important that if you are going to have add-ins that you plan ahead because the longer the add-in steeps, the better the flavour is imparted. Personally, I let my add-ins steep for at least 4 hours before serving/drinking.
● Sliced citrus such as limes, lemons, oranges and grapefruit also work as flavour add-ins. Just as with the herbs, the slices should steep in the drinks for at least 1 hour before serving; the longer, the better.
Homemade Guava Drink steeped with mint leaves (Photo by Cynthia Nelson)
Here is a fun thing to do with the fruit drinks that is sure to be a hit with children and adults – pour the mixture into Popsicle moulds! Halfway through the freezing process, insert Popsicle sticks and return them to freeze and harden solid.
Have fun with fruit-drink making. Play around with combinations of fruits; come up with your own proprietary blend. Remember that you can also make adult versions for yourself by adding alcohol such as vodka, rum, gin or liqueur.
