Lebanese Sparkling Rosewater Mint Lemonade

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

We all know and love our American lemonades, or even a sweet ol’ Arnold Palmer, but sometimes you feel like a twist on the classic. This Lebanese lemonade will twist it up for you and you’ll be left wanting more, so make sure you make plenty for the whole family, or why not, just for you. You’ll feel refreshed and hydrated.

Recipe Ingredients

These are the ingredients that you’ll need to make this recipe:

• freshly squeezed lemon juice
• whole lemons
• superfine sugar or honey
• rose water
• mint leaves (or basil leaves)
• ice
• lemon mineral water or bitter lemon soda

How To Make This Recipe

These are the instructions that you’ll need to follow to make this recipe:

• Make The Lemonade Base: Combine lemon juice, zest, honey, or superfine sugar, and rose water, stir to combine, and divide between two glasses. Place the mint leaves in the palm of one hand, hit or smack them once with the back of your hand, then add to the glasses.
• Serve The Lemonade: Add enough ice to fill glasses halfway then divide mineral water or club soda between glasses. Garnish with a few more mint leaves (or a whole sprig if you’d like) and serve.

A Taste Of Beirut

We stayed with friends in central Beirut and they made it their mission to show me as much of the food culture as possible. From wine tasting in the gorgeous but tumultuous Bekaa Valley to visiting the amazing Souk El Tayeb farmers market and cooking with local chefs at the cozy farm-to-table cafe Tawlet, I got an amazing perspective on the richness of the local food culture.

Our friends took every single chance to show off the food scene, stopping on our way to dinner to get me rose petal ice cream from famous Oslo, ordering Fattoush salads at every meal so I could compare and contrast, pausing on our way back from the beach to tell me about the street vendor whose yellow watermelon was amazing, and dragging me after clubbing to the famous but now defunct Marrouche for some amazing manouche or flatbreads.

What Is Lebanese Limonada?

But what I couldn’t stop ordering was a sort of Lebanese lemonade called Limonada. Lighter than an American lemonade, more akin to a French citron presse, and flavored with mint and rose water it was the first recipe I wanted to recreate upon returning home. And, now, as soon as the weather heats up, I mix up a batch.

A Note About The Sweetness

This recipe is less sweet than American lemonade but feel free to add more sweetener as desired.

Here it’s topped with some bubbly water to lighten it up a bit. It is traditionally made with orange blossom water (sometimes labeled orange flower water), but it is very hard to find, so I use rose water.

Not to sound like a lush, but it’s great spiked with some vodka, rum, or even a dash of limoncello.

That’s it! Now go stock up on all your cooking essentials then head into the kitchen, make this, and share it with us by tagging @saltandwind and #swsociety on social!