Pomegranate Lemonade

Happy Memorial Day! And what better way to celebrate than to share a delicious, refreshing drink?

This drink was born out of extreme thirst. We had just finished a few hours of gardening in the beating sunshine and I wanted to hydrate. I chugged some water but it just didn't do it for me. I wanted something sugary and delicious. We didn't have any lemonade ready to drink so I decided to make a batch. While I was grabbing my ingredients, I saw the pomegranate arils that I had just seeded the evening before and thought that a pomegranate lemonade would totally hit the spot. And then, because we'd been sweating so hard, I thought that instead of regular water, I would use coconut water to help us hydrate and replenish our electrolytes.

Ingredients [yields 4 servings, 8 oz each]:
1 cup pomegranate seeds
2 strawberries, hulled
⅓ cup sugar
2 lemons, juiced
1 quart coconut water
ice
orange slices for garnish

Start by adding the pomegranate arils and strawberries to a blender with the sugar. Pulse until they fruit is pureed and the sugar is dissolved.

Strain the puree to get rid of the seeds and pulp.

Stir in the lemon juice, and that's the pomegranate syrup, done.

Pour the syrup into a pitcher with ice and coconut water.

Pour the lemonade into chilled glasses with extra ice and garnish with orange slices. Cheers to a delicious drink. We cheers-ed to a job well done in our garden. And if we'd been in more of a celebratory mood than a need-to-quench-our-thirst mood, I might've poured in a glug or two of tequila.

This is a super refreshing, thirst quenching drink. The pomegranate and lemon are tart and bright and totally hit the spot. I also love that the coconut water adds just a hint of natural sweetness so that you don't have to load up the drink with as much sugar.

xoxo.