If you happen to have an excess of berries this summer, berry lemonade is both thrifty and delicious. I've used strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries to flavor lemonade made with bottled lemon juice and sugar.
This past month, I've focused on using up surplus frozen, wild blackberries from previous years. The procedure for making berry lemonade is the same for all berries. Simply mash or puree the berries, press through a sieve with the back of a spoon, and stir in lemon juice, sugar, and water.
For 2 quarts of berry lemonade, use:
1 to 1 1/2 cups of fresh or frozen berries (thaw first, if frozen)
7/8 to 1 cup sugar, depending on taste
scant 1 cup lemon juice
water to the 2 quart level
Berry lemonade is an excellent use for berries that are going soft, or are overripe when picking, as their soft texture will make them easier to mash. I use a vegetable masher in a bowl with the berries, then follow up by pushing the berry pulp through a sieve set over my pitcher. If the berries are very sweet, then less sugar is required. And likewise, if the berries are tart, then you may prefer the greater amount of sugar.
My cost for homemade berry lemonade (using homegrown or wild-picked berries) is about 7 cents per glass, about one-third of the cost of store-brand berry lemonade from frozen concentrate (at about 20 cents/glass), and twice as flavorful.
