Make Your Own Easy Fruity Lemonade

   The easiest fruity lemonade ever. Seriously. All these fruit twist fizzy drinks these days - some overwhelmingly sweet - you could just make them yourself with fruit and a bottle of lemonade or carbonated water. I did one myself a few days ago, and it was lush. I used Schwepps lemonade, and mixed a whole punnet of raspberries into it. It's great for a bit of a spring feeling!

   I put the raspberries in a blender and mixed them up good with a dash of lemonade to help the mixing. I then put them in a seive over a wide jug and used the back of a spoon to push the juice through the mesh, and discarded the lumps and seeds. I ended up with about 150ml of raspberry juice. I poured some of the lemonade in a pitcher, about half way up, and added a third of the juice. Watch it at this point, though. The juice reacts with the gas, and it fizzed up like mad. Once it settled, I tried some - oooh it was lovely. It wasn't that strong, it was quite muted, and the juice had taken out some of the fizz so it wasn't as harsh as manufactured fizzy drinks are these days, either. It was delightful.

    I poured the rest of the raspberry juice into the pitcher and poured the lot of it back into the bottle with the rest of the lemonade, which, again, fizzed like crazy.

   Because the juice reacts to the gas and removes the fizz, I wouldn't recommend mixing more than you need. If it's for a party or event, only mix as much as you'll need, or you risk the whole lot going flat within a few days unless you have proper lemonade bottles which will retain the pressure, or a Soda Stream to replenish the fizz.

   The best lemonade I've ever had is Fentiman's Rose Lemonade. I had it once and I just loved it. Thing is, I've not seen it anywhere since, and when I did have it it was in a little cafe by a river, about an hour's drive away. I did recently see a case of 12 bottles on Amazon and I can't say I've not been tempted. I'm hoping to be able to figure out how to make rose lemonade soon.