Yesterday our neighbors drifted over to the screened porch after the fireworks in town, and by ten o'clock I had emptied three pitchers. Nobody asked for soda. They wanted the sweet tea, the lemonade, and the cucumber water Lila had insisted on making herself, with cucumber slices of very uneven thickness. Standing at the sink afterward, rinsing glasses while Pepper licked a dropped ice cube across the kitchen floor, I did the rough math and realized the whole evening of drinks had cost less than eight dollars.
Summer drinks in South Carolina are not a luxury. When it is 94 degrees and the air feels like a damp towel, you need something cold in your hand pretty much all day. Bottled drinks add up fast for a family, so I keep a rotation of pitchers in the fridge instead. Here are the five I make most, with what they cost us this summer.
1. Proper Southern sweet tea
My grandmother made it strong and very sweet. I make it a little less sweet, which she would have found suspicious.
Ingredients (about 2 quarts, roughly $0.60)
- 6 regular black tea bags, or 2 family-size bags
- 2/3 cup sugar (she used a full cup)
- A tiny pinch of baking soda
- 8 cups water
Steps
- Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, turn off the heat, and add the tea bags. Steep 8 to 10 minutes.
- Remove the bags without squeezing them; squeezing makes it bitter.
- Stir in the sugar and baking soda while the tea is hot. The soda smooths out any harshness and keeps it from going cloudy.
- Pour into a pitcher with 4 cups of cold water. Chill completely before serving over lots of ice.
2. Real lemonade
Lemons are the expensive part, so I buy a bag at Costco when we are in Columbia, or wait for a sale at Publix. One bag usually makes two batches.
Ingredients (about 2 quarts, roughly $2.50)
- 1 cup fresh lemon juice (6 to 8 lemons)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 6 cups water
Steps
- Make a simple syrup: warm the sugar with 1 cup of water until dissolved. Let it cool.
- Juice the lemons. Rolling them hard on the counter first gets more out.
- Combine syrup, juice and the remaining 5 cups of cold water. Taste and adjust.
Half sweet tea, half lemonade is what most of the porch drinks in July. Lila calls it "the mixed one."
3. Cucumber mint water
The cheapest drink on the list and the one guests are always surprised by. Slice half a cucumber, add a handful of mint from the pot by the back steps, and fill a pitcher with cold water. Leave it at least two hours. Cost: about forty cents for the cucumber. Mint grows like a weed here once it gets going, so it is free after the first plant.
4. Watermelon agua fresca
By July, watermelons at the farmers market drop to a few dollars each, and a whole one is too much for three people to eat before it goes mealy. The leftover half becomes this.
- Cube about 4 cups of watermelon and blend until smooth.
- Strain through a mesh sieve if you mind pulp; I usually don't.
- Add 2 cups cold water, the juice of one lime and a spoonful of sugar if the melon is bland.
- Serve very cold. It separates, so stir before pouring.
Cost: about $1.50, counting it as half a melon we would otherwise have wasted.
5. Peach iced tea
This one uses up soft peaches that are past eating. Simmer two chopped peaches with half a cup of sugar and half a cup of water for ten minutes, mash, and strain the syrup into a batch of unsweetened black tea. It tastes like late afternoon. Cost: under a dollar if the peaches are bruised ones from the discount bin.
Notes from a summer of pitchers
- Ice is the hidden cost. Our freezer's ice maker can't keep up in July, so I freeze extra in muffin tins. Big cubes melt slower and don't water down the tea as fast.
- Glass pitchers stay colder than plastic and don't hold onto flavors. I found three at thrift stores for under $5 each.
- Label the sweet and unsweet. A strip of masking tape on the pitcher handle saves a lot of puckered faces.
- Most of these keep three or four days. Cucumber water gets a little bitter after day two, so pull the slices out.
- Kids like jobs. Lila now owns cucumber water and stirring the lemonade. She takes it very seriously.
The fireworks were fine. The neighbors stayed an extra hour, though, and I think it was the tea.
