By Christie Vanover | Published December 1, 2012 | Last Updated December 28, 2022
For this Vegas girl, lemonade season is in the winter. Sure I enjoy a refreshing glass when temps top 100 degrees, but my Meyer lemon tree doesn’t produce its beautiful golden fruit until December.
December 1st to be exact. I woke up this beautiful 75-degree morning to more than 100 lemons ready for the picking.
I planted my citrus trees about eight years ago. In addition to Meyer lemons, I have a lime tree, mandarin orange tree and a variegated pink lemonade tree. I had never seen pink lemons before, but I grew up drinking pink lemonade (made from concentrate).
When I bought this tree, I actually thought fresh pink lemonade must come from pink lemons.
Turns out I was wrong. Pink lemonade is just regular lemonade with a red sweetener added like grenadine, cranberry juice or raspberry juice.
You can use pink lemons, too, but they’re not easy to find and my tree only produces about 10 lemons a year. So I use them as a pretty garnish instead. It always brings about fun conversation because most people have never seen pink lemons.
I don’t like my lemonade super sweet, and I don’t like to drink my calories (unless there is booze involved), so I made this gorgeous pink lemonade skinny by using Truvia. The whole pitcher has less than 150 calories. If you don’t care about the calories, you can replace the Truvia with ½-cup sugar.
It may seem strange to think of lemonade in December, but it’s really a great light, colorful drink to serve over the holidays.
Skinny Pink Lemonade
Ingredients
- 5 Meyer lemons
- 4 cups water
- ¼ cup Truvia or ½ cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons grenadine syrup
Instructions
- Microwave four lemons for 30 seconds. (this makes them easier to juice.)
- Place a sieve over a pitcher and juice each lemon. The sieve will collect the seeds and pulp.
- Four lemons should yield 1 cup of juice.
- Bring 1 cup water and ¼ cup Truvia (or ½ cup sugar) to a boil in a small pot.
- Combine the lemon juice, Truvia syrup, 3 cups water and grenadine in a pitcher.
- Add lemon slices to the pitcher and garnish each glass with a slice.
- Serve over ice.
This estimate was created using an online nutrition calculator
Jackie@Syrup and Biscuits says
I’m harvesting my first crop of Meyer lemons this year! We planted our tree last year and have about a dozen and a half lemons this year. I’ve got several things in mind for those luscious little lemons!
Gorgeous photos!