Escoffier’s Lemonade with Seltzer Water
Reader ratingsLemon zest and juice steeped cold in sugar syrup for three hours, strained and lengthened with a siphon of seltzer, with a thin round of lemon in each glass: Escoffier’s lemonade of 1907.
- Recipe makes
- About 2.3 liters, 10 glasses
- Prep
- Total
Includes 3 hours for the lemon zest to steep in the fridge.
Escoffier’s lemonade in a glass jug and three tumblers with a lemon slice in each, beside a soda siphon.
The story behind the recipe
Escoffier’s lemonade takes three hours and a siphon. Lemon zest and juice steep in sugared water in a cool place, the base is strained, and the seltzer water goes in just before serving, with a thin round of lemon in each glass. It is no. 2937 in A Guide to Modern Cookery, the 1907 London edition of the book whose frozen Punch à la Romaine comes a few numbers earlier.
Mineral waters and lemons
Nothing records lemonade on the Titanic. Its provision rooms had a cold chamber for mineral waters, and R. A. Fletcher’s Travelling Palaces (1913) lists 15,000 bottles of mineral water and 16,000 lemons among the stores her sister ship Olympic took on for one voyage. This lemonade belongs with the ship by date and by book, the one that explains the Punch Romaine on the last first-class dinner menu. What Did People Drink on the Titanic? sorts what is recorded about the ship’s drinks from what is only told.
The instructions are short: “let infusion proceed in the cool for three hours,” then “add one syphonful of seltzer water.” A bottle of chilled soda water does the siphon’s work today, and it goes in last, just before the jug goes to the table, so the lemonade keeps its fizz.
Read more about this recipe
Zest in cold water
Mrs. Beeton, in 1861, rubbed lumps of sugar over her lemons and poured boiling water onto them; her lemonade is cooled before it is drunk. Escoffier’s steeps cold, in the fridge. Peel off just the yellow zest, because the white pith is bitter and has three hours to make itself felt. The finished jug is about 10 percent sugar, roughly two-thirds as sweet as Beeton’s, which puts the same half pound of sugar into less water. A London book of 1924 built its American lemonade in the glass over shaved ice instead; Escoffier’s is a jug for the table.
LEMONADE. Dissolve half-lb. of loaf-sugar in one quart of filtered water. Add the juice and the zests of the rinds of two lemons, and let infusion proceed in the cool for three hours. Pass the whole through a fine strainer; add one syphonful of seltzer water, and serve with a thin roundel of lemon in each glass.
Recipe makes: About 2.3 liters, 10 glasses
Ingredients
For About 2.3 liters, 10 glasses. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 2.3 liters, 10 glasses.
- Sugar225 g
- Filtered water1.1 l
- Lemons2
- Soda water, chilled1 l
- Lemon, thinly sliced, to serve1
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 225 g sugar
- 1.1 liters filtered water
- 2 lemons
- 1 liter soda water, chilled
- 1 lemon, thinly sliced, to serve
Equipment
Vegetable peeler
Large jug or bowl
Fine strainer
Serving jug
Instructions
Stir the sugar into the filtered water in a large jug or bowl until it has dissolved.
Peel the zest from the 2 lemons in thin strips with a vegetable peeler, leaving the white pith behind. Squeeze the lemons and add the juice and the zest to the sugared water.
Cover and leave in the fridge for 3 hours.
Pour through a fine strainer into a serving jug.
Just before serving, add the chilled soda water and stir once.
Put a thin slice from the sliced lemon in each glass and pour the lemonade over it.
Nutrition
90calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 2.3 liters, 10 glasses
- Servings
- 10
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for granulated sugar and lemon juice; soda water adds nothing.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep about 1 liter of soda water to every 1.1 liters of lemon base.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Escoffier’s half-pound of loaf sugar is about 225 g, and his quart is the British Imperial quart of about 1,136 ml, rounded here to 1.1 liters. Loaf sugar was cut from a hard cone; ordinary granulated sugar dissolves the same way. The siphon’s size is not printed: 1 liter is an estimate, and you can add more or less soda water to taste.
Keep the base cold and covered, and use it within 3 to 4 days, as the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service advises for refrigerated leftovers.
For Escoffier’s orangeade, make the same base with the juice and zest of oranges, adding the juice of half a lemon.
Storage
Keep the strained lemon base covered in the fridge and use it within 3 to 4 days. Add the soda water only when you serve.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
A. Escoffier, A Guide to Modern Cookery (London: Heinemann, 1907), “Lemonade”, no. 2937, p. 817
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-free
- Drink family
- Sodas & Soft Drinks
- Region
- French
- Source decade
- 1900s
- Base
- Fruit & juice
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Season
- Summer