Why is there pink lemonade?

[Fat Guy]

I just don't understand the pink lemonade thing. You go to a supermarket, and they have cans of frozen concentrated lemonade, or they have powdered lemonade mix. There's always a choice of pink or white. You look at the ingredients, they're exactly the same except for pink food coloring. What's going on? Were there pink lemons somewhere in history, the appearance of which pink lemonade attempts to recapture?

[Jaymes]

Dunno for sure, but in my house back "somewhere in history," my mom made pink lemonade by adding some juice from a jar of Maraschino cherries.

Edited May 1, 2007 by Jaymes (log)

[Megan Blocker]

Cuz it's purty?

According to Wikipedia, it's lemonade with grenadine added...

Click!

[Tess]

I think it's because people started adding Angostura or grenadine to lemonade. At least, my grandmother added those things to lemonade.

[Badiane]

Well, not to be all bloodthirsty or anything but according to 'the Hoya', Georgetown U's newspaper, it came about in the following way...

"...the creation of pink lemonade took place in a local Alexandria ice house used as a morgue, where lemonade — a very valuable drink at the time — was poured onto the congealed dead bodies to give them their final respect.

After the blood from the bodies would fuse with the lemony libation, a bubblegum pink shade would result, and pink lemonade was born."

[Kent D]

Well, that's disappointing that it's only food coloring. Our homemade lemonade always came with a splash of cherry juice, and sometimes even a few thin slices of lemon. But I guess everything I've tasted lately had nothing to distinguish it from regular.

[jsmith]

Maybe pink lemons grow in the same place blue raspberries do.

[eje]

My first guess would be that it ended up pink somehow because someone was subbing in either a pink sweetener to replace expensive sugar, or a pink sour agent, to replace expensive lemons.

I did find one recipe on the internet for "Pink Lemonade" that involved sumac and no lemons at all. Aside from sumac, hibiscus flavored drink is red and somewhat similar to lemonade.

Or maybe pink lemonade was originally some sort of lemon-berry shrub.

I suppose, though, the "it's just pretty" argument, is always possible.

[SuzySushi]

Here ya' go: Pink-fleshed Eureka Lemons. (I just bought one at the local farmers' market--haven't made pink lemonade yet.)

http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/lemons.html#pink

[andiesenji]

I came across several stories when I was trying to find information about this some ten years or so ago.

The earliest date I could find was a story about Samuel Davies, Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1840, hosting a garden party. One of the kitchen help poured a gallon of raspberry shrub into a large crock that she thought held only ice, but actually was lemonade with ice floating on the top. The resulting pink drink was considered the height of fashion for years afterward.

My notes have no information about Mayor Davies wife, or even if he had one, only that he was a Whig and an Episcopalian and "near six feet tall and clean shaven."

Several cities, from Boston to Charleston and west to St. Louis, plus many others, claim to be the place pink lemonade was first served. It is so ubiquitous that I doubt the true origin can be discovered.

Thomas Jefferson grew lemon and other citrus trees at Monticello and Harriet Pinckney Horry, a prominent South Carolina widow, left to posterity an impressive collection of receipts that includes such exotic (for that time) ingredients as lemons and cocoa nuts.

And that is just in America.

Also, you might inquire here: Foot Timeline inquiries.

Edited May 2, 2007 by andiesenji (log)

[Syrah]

Cuz it's purty?

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This was my answer. Little girls like pink lemonade.

[Kayakado]

When I lived in PA, we used to collect the sumac berries and make lemonade. It was tasty, very similar to lemon or limeaid and pink. A moderately deep pink, if I remember correctly. Now a days I add cranberry juice or strawberry puree to make pink lemonade. Raspberries, wineberries or mulberries would work too.

My mother had a lot of local food knowledge and we ate some strange and not so strange stuff, we picked along the road side. We lived in the same area as Euell Gibbons, where there are lots of things to eat like:

Sumac berries

Asparagus (grows along the roads)

Ground Cherries, now known as tomatillos

Poke shoots

Cattail shoots, known as Cossack Asparagus

Jewel weed seeds

there was more but it was so long ago, I can't remember. Considering the growth that area has experienced, quiet roadsides for this stuff to grow are disappearing.

[phaelon56]

Cuz it's purty?

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This was my answer. Little girls like pink lemonade.

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As do many big boys.

[le petit boucher]

For those familiar with Ireland you'll know they have red lemonade, which is infact lemonade by default unless you specify otherwise in the pub (but why aren't you drinking guiness?)

It tastes a little like a drink we have in the UK called Tizer, is that something you have in the US?

[Morgan_Weber]

I've noticed that on alot of pink lemonade igredient lists, that beet extract is used as a coloring agent...

I don't get the fascination with this stuff either Fat Guy...

[Pebs]

Why use food coloring when you can use perfectly good Chambord! The more you drink, the purtier it gets.

[srhcb]

Maybe it's wasn't just in reference to lemonade, but a few days ago I overheard one teenaged girl tell another that "pink is the new black", so I expect to see a lot of it.

SB (has always worn black, and doesn't plan to change either his wearing or lemonade drinking habits )

[Lilija]

Why use food coloring when you can use perfectly good Chambord!  The more you drink, the purtier it gets.

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Genius!

[michael_g]

For those familiar with Ireland you'll know they have red lemonade, which is infact lemonade by default unless you specify otherwise in the pub (but why aren't you drinking guiness?)

It tastes a little like a drink we have in the UK called Tizer, is that something you have in the US?

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I think they're talking about U.S. lemonade -- sweetened, diluted, iced lemon juice -- and not the Ireland/UK lemonade -- such as Appletizer and Grapetizer, which are more like our light sodas, 7-Up and Sprite.

[Intellidepth]

I have a fabulous memory of my first pink lemonade in the US 15 years ago - it was the best 'real' lemonade I had tasted (no carbonation), and I had a mother who was expert at the manual technique with our own lemon trees.

So I guess it did have something extra but I'd never be able to define what it was. I remember it being sweet, but not as tart, with a more rounded flavour?

Some eliminations: NOT

- beet juice

- pomegranate syrup, I can imagine a lovely fragrance from this combo though

- cranberry

- strawberry

- Chambord, but I'll just have to give that a try after buying my first gorgeous bottle of this raspberry jammy liquor last week.

Maybe:

- A hint of raspberry syrup

And just maybe it was made from real pink lemons...

[pennbrew]

I guess it's like our orange cheddar cheese. I've had a few European friends puzzled by the color of most of our packaged cheese, they'd never seen anything like it.

[natter]

When I was a kid, I remember liking pink lemonade just because lemonade shouldn't be that color (rebel without a cause syndrome, I guess). Now, whenever strawberries are in season I make my kids pink lemonade, just because there are few things in this world better that a day at the pool and some fresh strawberry lemonade (which happens to be pink).

[annecros]

I just don't understand the pink lemonade thing. You go to a supermarket, and they have cans of frozen concentrated lemonade, or they have powdered lemonade mix. There's always a choice of pink or white. You look at the ingredients, they're exactly the same except for pink food coloring. What's going on? Were there pink lemons somewhere in history, the appearance of which pink lemonade attempts to recapture?

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Oh, you think too much.

Especially because you either buy frozen concentrate or powdered crap - (and I do mean CRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP in the Scottish accent sort of thing)

Pink Lemonade is just some grenadine in an already fresh squeezed lemonade. It makes it pretty and special. Cherry juice from a bottle of maraschinos is usual as well.

I think the advent of ruby red citrus has influenced the citrus beverage industry. Although I know of no ruby red lemons.

[phatj]

Well, not to be all bloodthirsty or anything  but according to 'the Hoya', Georgetown U's newspaper, it came about in the following way...

"...the creation of pink lemonade took place in a local Alexandria ice house used as a morgue, where lemonade — a very valuable drink at the time — was poured onto the congealed dead bodies to give them their final respect.

After the blood from the bodies would fuse with the lemony libation, a bubblegum pink shade would result, and pink lemonade was born."

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And somebody thought this would be good to drink?