This goes to all of you out there – in an attempt to take you back to our years of innocence and lemonade.

I was always a sour kid. My mum says that I was a baby when I started eating raw lemons and my face use to go all funny from the sour and burning taste but I used to keep on eating.

I still eat raw lemons (with some salt they are the best meze when you are drinking raki). Any lemony and sour has a special place in my heart kitchen.

Some days ago I was at some friends’ house at Kroussonas and I got whole bags of fragrant lemons from their lemon tree. See the pic above with the weird little lemon as proof of all natural no chemical fruit on their tree.

This then was my chance for the epic blog posts adventure of “Sour Power” which we will see how many parts will require.

Part A: Cool lemonade

The job is easy. Use exactly the same amount of sugar as lemon juice, plus some lemon peel (grate it). When I say the same amount I mean in size not in weight! Don’t do it by weight it will be impossible to drink. So, if you use one cup of lemon juice then you need one cup of sugar (brown or white, whatever you prefer).

Pour everything in your pan, boil for about ten minutes (until it comes together like a very light syrup, let it cool completely and then pour it in a bottle. Store in the fridge.

Anytime you want to drink a glass of cool lemonade, if you have any guests all sweaty (even though I admit this is more the case in the Greek summer temperatures) – they can quench their thirst like in American films. Put some ice cubes in a glass, fill 1/3 of the glass with your lemony syrup and fill up with water.

Hints & Tips

• I love the sour taste so I just use half part sugar instead of one whole part sugar.
• You can use soda water instead of water and then it gets all fizzy!
• The lemony syrup goes great with alcohol. I tried with vodka, tequila (white) and of course some raki. It’s all great!
• Do not get rid of the lemon peel! You can use them to make other drinks like Panagiotis’ Cretan limoncello.