Lemon squash

When I was little, I had very strong opinions on what was “fair” and what wasn’t. One of the things I really didn’t think was fair was how other kids were allowed to drink soft drinks (pop) and we were only allowed those on a special occasion (or, when we were sick, we got to drink lemonade). We drank very few of our calories when we were little but that’s not to say we didn’t get treats. My mum is an excellent baker and we always had homemade cakes and biscuits (cookies) around the house. When it came to drinks, however, the coveted soft drink was confined to birthday parties and family gatherings at Christmas. My mum’s mum, who always hosted Christmas Eve dinner at her house, offered cream soda, some ghastly lime green fizzy drink and SOLO – a “lemon pub squash” for us kids who thought, well, all our Christmases had come at once. SOLO became my drink of choice on Christmas Eve. It felt so grown up – not too sweet and gaudily coloured like all the other drinks. Also, it had a highly amusing ad campaign…

The original pub squash has been crushing the thirst of Aussie men since 1973.

SOLO is outdoors, active, real lemon tang refreshment.  There’s nothing like a SOLO when you work up a real thirst. That’s why SOLO is light on the fizz so you can slam it down fast.

Even our ads are famous. The legendary SOLO man, an Aussie icon, performed daring and adventurous feats in TV commercials right up until the late 90s – no challenge was too big if an ice cold can of SOLO was the reward!

(source)

I mean, right? How can you NOT want drink that helps you perform daring and adventurous feats? 😉

To this day, I’m still not a big soft drink drinker (which is a good thing, so, thanks after all mum and dad!), though I do like a good San Pellegrino flavoured drink from time to time and I love our Soda Stream machine for its ability to make fizzy water which, on its own is quite often enough for me. I guess it’s the bubbles but not the flavour that I really like…

But for some reason, recently I was thinking about SOLO and wondered if I might be able to easily recreate this at home – I have the bubbles with my Soda Stream, now all I needed was the lemon part. I did a little experimenting and came up with something that’s *really* close – not too sweet and super refreshing on a hot summer’s day…

Like the original SOLO, it’s got some pulp in it – I think that makes it feel more authentic, more like a real fruit drink, you know?

You don’t need much of it to make a tasty drink…

Yield: 750mls

Lemon squash

Print

Easy homemade lemon squash - much better than store-bought.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Chill Time 4 hours

Total Time 4 hours 35 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 lemons
• 500mls water
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

Instructions

1. With a vegetable peeler, peel the rind off the lemons.
2. Place the lemon rind, the water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
3. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-7 minutes.
4. Remove from heat. strain the rind out and allow to cool.
5. Meanwhile, peel the lemons and remove the seeds from the flesh.
6. Place the lemon flesh in a food processor with about 1/4 cup water.
7. Process until the flesh is liquidy.
8. Strain over a jug, pressing the pulp until virtually no more liquid remains - you might want to add back in some of pulp if you prefer a lemon squash with pulp.
9. Combine the juices from the pulp with the sugar syrup and stir to combine.
10. Use about 1/4 cup of the squash with fizzy water.

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It’s perfect on a hot summer’s afternoon.

This recipe makes about 750mls which is perfect for a party. Impress your friends with your very own homemade squash. I guarantee that once you have tasted this you will have a hard time drinking store-bought stuff… And hey, with a splash of vodka or gin, it’s a perfect party mixer for everyone, not just the kids!