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A Holiday Drink with Homegrown Lemons and Homemade Ginger Syrup

It’s lemon season.

Citrus heaven.

Well, technically, the season for Meyer lemons grown in temperate areas, such as a big pot in my Missouri dining room, can be year-round. But we just finally picked the first golden bursts of sunshine from our little tree.

In a little over a year, we have seen our little Meyer lemon tree burst into bloom a couple of times. After creating an intoxicating fragrance, most of the flowers fell off. But last spring, several of blooms gave way to little green fruits.

Two of them lasted through the hot, hot summer, my inconsistent care and a move back inside for winter. I eyed the lemon babies daily for signs of yellowing. Finally, they were ready.

Since we only had two, I wanted to be sure we used them for some special and memorable recipe.

There they are! Two homegrown lemons!

By chance, around the same time, my DIY gourmet friend Lisa gave me a bottle of her homemade ginger syrup.

So, Zach cut up the lemons – which were amazingly sweet, tart and juicy – and mixed up some delicious drinks (with a little help from the Sodastream that I previously bought on Lisa’s recommendation).

Check out the recipe for the drinks and the syrup itself!

Lemon Vodka Gingerade (Crystal’s approximation of Zach’s recipe)

Ingredients:

Vodka
Lemon wedges
Ginger Syrup
Unflavored sparkling water
Ice

Directions:

Fill a pint glass with ice. Add vodka. We usually pour to about 1/4 of the glass. This would be about 1 to 1-1/2 shots if you’re measuring. Next, add sparkling water, leaving about a finger’s width of room at the top of the glass. Grab a couple lemon wedges and squeeze them into the drink. Then, add ginger syrup to taste.

Now, stir, and enjoy!

That bottle of syrup didn’t last long at our house!

A Loose Recipe for Ginger Syrup (Lisa’s Recipe)

Ingredients:

3 big pieces of ginger, about the size of your hand
(Filtered) water
2.5 – 3.5 cups suger, I used about 2 parts white, 1 part lt. brown, 1 part raw
A few pieces of lemon peel from an organic, unwaxed lemon, no pith

Directions:

No need to peel the ginger, just wash it well. Pulse in a blender until it is well minced. Cover with water in a heavy bottom pot. I just eyeball the amount of water, about 3 times more than the ginger. But err on the side of less since you can always add more water later if it is too strong. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 45 mins. Strain and try to press out as much of the liquid from the ginger as possible. Discard ginger. Return to the pot and add the suger. Simmer on low for another 30 mins. Turn off the heat and add the lemon peel. Let the syrup cool then strain it one more time. Done. It’s ready to get made into some amazing drink.

Note: I just filter it though a medium/fine mesh sieve a couple of times, but if you want it less cloudy and pulpy, you can pass it though cheese cloth a few times before you add the suger.

On this batch, I boiled the ginger down a second time with a couple fresh cups of water. I thought I could get more ginger flavor, but I think it just got a bit bitter. I probably wont do that again.