Viable alternative to soda?

Ready for the Fridge

I was catching up on my Facebook feed the other day … just scrolling along when some beautiful jars of colored water with fruit & herbs caught my eye. A friend had posted a link to a blog where the writer was looking for something else to drink. Something other than plain water, soda, or fruit juice.

Enter this fruit water concoction. I loved it from the first word. Now, normally I would just read stuff like this, bookmark the page & sometime later maybe go back, find it & eventually try it out.

This time … I read about it & promptly got up to go make some. Yeah, just like that. See, I don’t drink nearly enough water. It gets boring. Just like the other blogger had mentioned. Here was something simple & fun to try.

So I wondered what I’d make my first batch with. The blogger had all kinds of recipes (well, okay, 5) & my mind was thinking to what I had on hand at home. And I did not add nearly as much fruit or herb as was listed in the recipes.

ready to drink

Batch one was raspberry, pineapple mint, & lemon.

Start with a 2 quart mason jar (or equivalent)

Raspberries were frozen from our bushes last year. I used a small handful. Less than a cup for sure.

The mint is from the yard. I used maybe 10 leaves.

The lemon was juice … maybe a teaspoon worth.

Now you are supposed to use a muddler to mush the fruit & crush the leaves … to release the flavors from both. I don’t have a muddler yet so I just used a wooden spatula/spoon thing… worked fine for now.

Add ice … I used 2 trays worth.

Add water to fill jar. I used filtered water.

Now you just stick it in the fridge & wait. When reading the bloggers post, she said it tastes best after 24 hours. Well, to be fair for a first time, we waited almost 24 hours. It's my understanding from reading more that 4 to 6 hours is sufficient.

Pineapple mint ready for fridge

Wow. Not bad at all. Hubby & I were both pleased with the results. What a wonderful fresh taste it had. Now, is it something we could replace soda with? I think perhaps we could. I do crave that fizz every now & then so perhaps we can mix this with some sparkling water or something on occasion.We could certainly replace the more concentrated big ol bottles of grape juice we're drinking.

We were so happy with the first batch, we looked to see what we had to try another. Batch 2 was pineapple & spearmint. It’s in the fridge now ….

There is a book out which has something like 50 recipes for flavor combinations to try. It’s on my Amazon wishlist … until then I will wander the internet looking for more flavor combos.

One small problem ... if we keep this up, I'm going to need my mint plants to grow faster. Or plant more. Or both!