Lemonanza! Lemonade!
They say, when life gives you lemons make lemonade. So, we have.
On Saturday 14th March we will be serving our first batch of fermented lemonade at Otago Farmers Market. Perfect on its own as as a mixer with our Gin. Come along and give it a try.
Over the last year or so our Limoncello has become increasing popular. Hand made in the traditional way we use only lemon zest, our bread-based alcohol and sugar to produce this classic Italian digestive.
In the early days we were able to use all the zested lemons in the production of our Mulled Gin. Any lemons left after that were given away to friends and family. But as production has increased, we have had to find a use for the kilos of lemons we are now going through every week.
When I was very young, from time to time, my Grandma would serve up her fermented lemonade. It was fizzy, not too sweet and delicious. I much preferred it to the sickly lemon cordials that often passed as home made ‘lemonade’. Sadly, her recipe was never passed on through the family so we began some experiments to see if we could use the zested lemons to recreate Grandma Mac’s non-alcoholic fermented lemonade.
After a few weeks of trial and error we have settled on a recipe. The fermentation is provided by the addition of a little fresh whey from our friends at Holy Cow to the lemons, water and sugar. The result is a light, lemony, fizzy beverage with beneficial probiotics (lactobacillus) from the whey starter.
There is a lot of talk about the circular economy. This is the circular economy in action. The solids from every bread mash we make from surplus bakery product go to Holy Cow as supplementary feed. Now we are taking whey from those same cows and using it to make lemonade.
In these increasingly uncertain times, perhaps now more than ever, resource reuse and recovery will be vital to ensure our communities are resilient and sustainable. I think Grandma Mac would approve.