Help me stay the cool aunt: lemonade-version....

November 21, 2013 5:54 AM

What's the difference, if any, between pink lemonade and regular lemonade?

So apparently one of his classmates had a birthday yesterday, and the mom brought cupcakes and lemonade --- pink lemonade, that is.

I've got to admit I never really questioned this before, but now my 8-year-old nephew is fascinated by it: you can tell how much it grabbed his attention by the fact that he forgot to eat his cupcake! Anyway, now he wants to know what the difference is from regular old pale-yellow lemonade: is pink lemonade made from special lemons, or is it just food coloring?

(And if there are special lemons involved, where & how can he get hold of some?)

posted by easily confused to Food & Drink (25 answers total)

Best answer: My mom used to make pink lemonade by adding a bit of grape juice. As far as I know, there is no naturally pink lemon... I think people just started dying it for novelty, and because it's a naturally light color that's easy to tint.
posted by Kriesa at 5:57 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: Wikipedia entry says Eureka lemons. And colored with pink fruit or berries.

(It's my favorite, too.)
posted by mochapickle at 5:58 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: It's not special lemons.

Sometimes it's just food coloring, but sometimes (my favorite) it's made with strawberry or raspberry and is delicious.
posted by mekily at 5:58 AM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I thought it was grenadine that was the difference. Upon googling, yes, I think I was right that it was grenadine. Even Martha agrees.
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 5:58 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If you want to extend his fascination, show him some pink grapefruits or blood oranges.
posted by CathyG at 5:59 AM on November 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I thought it was grenadine too. Definitely yummier.
posted by Mchelly at 5:59 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Usually the pink in lemonade is just food coloring. However, I did a study many years ago that showed that color matters. I had subjects taste regular, pink and green lemonade and rate their taste experience. Long story short...green tasted bitter, regular tasted ok but sour, pink was perceived as sweeter. when blind folded no real differences were perceived.
posted by txmon at 5:59 AM on November 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Every recipe I've come across mentions non-pink lemons and red stuff, be it grenadine syrup or some kind of berry juice.
posted by emelenjr at 6:01 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: Most of the time it's Red 40 working the magic. So...yeah, no magic. Commercially made stuff is almost always just normal lemonade dyed pink.

One of the theories for how pink lemonade was created was that some circus dude mixed it up using the water from some other circus dude's laundry, in which he had washed red tights. That is gross and sure to amuse an 8 year old nephew. You can tell him it's made from dirty underpants. Hehe

If you want to make it yourself, I would suggest finding rose hip tea somewhere, brewing a strong cup of it, and mixing that in when you make the lemonade. It gives it a really awesome pink color but imparts very little flavor. And I know that with kids that age, sometimes it doesn't matter if your version tastes better; if it doesn't taste right, then you've basically failed.
posted by phunniemee at 6:03 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: Lemonade with grenadine tastes yummy.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 6:07 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: Apparantly when pink lemonade was accidentally invented, it was by adding cinnamon candies.

"Henry E. Allott, known all through the Middle West as 'Bunk' Allen, member of the old Chicago gambling syndicate, saloonkeeper, theatrical promoter, circus man, and inventor of pink lemonade, died here today. At 15 he ran away with the circus and obtained a lemonade concession. One day while mixing a tub full of the orthodox yellow kind he dropped some red cinnamon candies in by mistake. The resulting rose-tinted mixture sold so surprisingly well that he continuted to dispense his chance discovery."
"Inventor of Pink Lemonade Dead," New York Times, September 18, 1912
posted by billiebee at 6:08 AM on November 21, 2013 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah, syrup is a cool way to make pink lemonade. You can tell nephew that sometimes it's just food coloring but there are other ways - Hell, why not spend a day with the kid making different kinds of lemonade and testing them out on the family? Lemonade from powder, lemonade from fresh lemons and real sugar, lemonade with flavored syrup, lemonade with macerated strawberries and raspberries, whatever. Cooking is science, turn it into a science experiment like txmon!



If you want to extend his fascination, show him some pink grapefruits or blood oranges.
posted by CathyG

I think I was about 13 the first time I saw a blood orange, and I am still fascinated by them 20 years later. What a cool fruit!
posted by polly_dactyl at 6:09 AM on November 21, 2013 [4 favorites]

Best answer: You could make it with beet juice (if you like beets, to cooking or canning water is deep red), strawberry or raspberry syrup or juice, or red grape juice. Rose hip tea sounds tasty, and is full of vitamin c. I always assumed pink grapefruit juice was sweeter. I'd use it as a science teaching opportunity, and do some taste-testing. Another fun thing to do with color is cook purple cabbage, then add vinegar - it goes bright magenta. The something in the cabbage reacts with the acid in the vinegar. Then add some brown sugar and you have sweet & sour red cabbage, very tasty.
posted by theora55 at 6:14 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Something tells me it's gonna be a messy weekend in my kitchen:
Shopping list: lemons, food coloring (all colors, hehehe....), grenadine, cinnamon candies, various berries, regular and pink grapefruits, blood oranges, regular oranges, grape juice.....
To do: pick up nephew, make a mess --- whoops, sorry, make that "experiment with citrus fruit!"

Thanks all!
posted by easily confused at 6:16 AM on November 21, 2013 [9 favorites]

Best answer: Why don't you freeze ice cube with different food colours and flavours and then have him add the cube(s) of his choice and see what happens?
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 6:20 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: To do: pick up nephew, make a mess --- whoops, sorry, make that "experiment with citrus fruit!"

Make sure you have a blindfold at the ready for taste tests. :)

Also, you are clearly the best aunt. Rock on.
posted by phunniemee at 6:33 AM on November 21, 2013 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Why not try different colors? There's green-colored syrup (grenadine? I don't know -- it's green), orange (carrot juice, orange juice), blue (blueberry purée), etc.
posted by amtho at 6:51 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: If you can get them, this could be a time to investigate other citrus sodas, like Aranciata Rossa and Pink Ting. They are amusing colours.

It's about a month late, but a tall glass of freshly squeezed blood orange juice is the best Halloween drink. Some varieties really have that disconcerting bloody look, but taste great.
posted by scruss at 7:06 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: That sounds like a GREAT activity!

Grenadine is one of my favorite liquids. So yummy!

But I also love raspberry lemonade.

You rock!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:03 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: Pink lemons do exist, but aren't grown in sufficient quantity for commercial lemonade production.
posted by mollymayhem at 8:11 AM on November 21, 2013

Best answer: Traditionally, pink lemonade was made with grenadine, and comes out a little bit sweeter than regular lemonade. If you're buying packets of KoolAid lemonade or CountryTime or whatever, then it's just food coloring.
When my brother was small, he infamously refused to drink regular lemonade, because pink was far superior. My mom looked at her pantry shelf with lots of yellow-lemonade packets, and started putting drops of food coloring in the pitcher, which was totally enough to satisfy him. It tasted much better, he insisted; but she didn't mention it was just coloring until years later.
posted by aimedwander at 8:33 AM on November 21, 2013

Response by poster: I like the idea of different-colored ice cubes (picture something like red or purple ice cubes in pink lemonade!), but if I wait until the weekend, then the ice won't have time to freeze: instead, I'll get those ice cubes into the freezer today, so they'll be ready for the Big Lemonade Project.

Avoid my place this Saturday: it's gonna be knee-deep in stickiness and citrus juice, folks!
posted by easily confused at 9:25 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I like the idea of different-colored ice cubes

Oh, oh, oh - put just a little bit of colored water in the ice cube tray and freeze it, then put another layer of another color and freeze it and continue layers until you have some striped ice cubes!!
posted by CathyG at 5:08 PM on November 21, 2013

Response by poster: In case anyone is still reading this: in his 8-year-old opinion, Nephew said the green and blue and orange lemonades were pretty, but nothing tasted as good as the pink and purple versions. (Could be confirmation bias: those are already his favorite colors.) He really liked the version with grenadine, but his absolute favorite was with mashed raspberries --- although honestly, that might have been because he found the berry-mashing itself entertaining: give that kid a potato masher and a pile of berries and stand back!

He and I made some pitchers of lemonade for our contribution to the big family get-together over Thanksgiving: plain, pink with grenadine and pink with raspberries. He had a great time blindfolding everyone and making up a chart of the resulting preferences --- the scientific method, with crayons.
posted by easily confused at 4:19 PM on December 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

He had a great time blindfolding everyone and making up a chart of the resulting preferences --- the scientific method, with crayons.

He will be telling this story to friends for the rest of his life. SO much awesome!!
posted by polly_dactyl at 11:17 AM on January 1, 2014