Classic Lemonade

Lemonade's earliest documented ancestor traces to medieval Egypt, where records from 10th- to 13th-century Cairo describe qatarmizat, a drink of lemon juice and sugar made and sold by the city's Jewish community, sometimes exported abroad. The lemon itself had reached Egypt by around 700 AD, arriving from farther east, and sweetened lemon-water drinks are believed to have circulated in the Islamic world before this written evidence appears.

The drink later spread to Europe, and by the 17th century street vendors in Paris were selling it from tanks carried on their backs. The beverage became so popular in the city that in 1676 the vendors organized into a guild, the Compagnie de Limonadiers, granted a monopoly on selling the drink there. From this Parisian trade, lemonade spread across continental Europe and eventually to England and North America, evolving into the simple lemon juice, sugar, and water preparation known today. This recipe adds mint and muddled orange and grapefruit slices to the lemon juice, syrup, and soda water.