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Orangeade (Juice of orange Juice of lemon)
Juice of 1 orange Juice of 1/4 lemon 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar Cold water to fill glass A large variety of nectars can be made by using lemonade as a foundation and coloring and flavoring it with various kinds of fruit juices.
A single-glass formula rather than a batch recipe: the quantities scale by the number of glasses you need. The proportions assume juice squeezed to order, which is where all the flavour lives.
- YieldOne glass. A medium orange gives roughly 1/4 cup of juice and a quarter lemon a couple of teaspoons, so the drink is mostly water.
- Sugar firstDissolve the sugar in the citrus juice before adding cold water; granulated sugar dissolves slowly in a cold glass and tends to settle. A simple syrup (equal sugar and water, boiled briefly and cooled) mixes in at once and is the usual modern shortcut.
- The lemon is structuralThe quarter lemon is not a garnish but the acid backbone of the drink. Taste as you mix, and use up to half a lemon if the orange juice is very sweet and the result tastes flat.
- Sugar rangeOne to two tablespoons per glass reflects fruit of unpredictable sweetness. Start at one, taste, and add more; the drink should read tart rather than syrupy.
- IceThe original calls only for cold water. If you serve it over ice, the melt will dilute the drink, so make the juice-and-sugar base a little stronger.
- Strain or notPulp and membrane make the drink cloudy and slightly bitter after standing. A quick pass through a coarse sieve is worth it if the orangeade will sit more than a few minutes.
- The "nectars" noteThe closing line is a template: lemonade as the acid-and-sugar base, then a few tablespoons of raspberry, cherry, currant or grape juice for colour and flavour. Bottled juices work; taste first and cut the sugar back if the juice is already sweetened.
Orangeade and lemonade belong to a family of home "beverages" that appear in many American household manuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, alongside fruit shrubs, cup custards and invalid drinks. They were valued partly as refreshment and partly as sickroom cookery: citrus juice thinned with water and sweetened was often recommended for feverish patients long before vitamin C was isolated around 1930. The name uses the -ade suffix that English took from French for a sweetened drink, as in lemonade. The suggestion that any fruit juice can be dropped into a lemonade base to make a "nectar" may reflect the period's growing supply of commercially bottled juices and grape products, which put out-of-season fruit flavour within reach of an ordinary kitchen.