By All the way at the bottom of Westeros is the region “Dorne,” a very warm area surrounding on three sides by the sea, and consisting mostly of desert. They are a passionate and independent people who enjoy dining on fiery peppers and grilled snake! They also grow quite a bit of fruit in Dorne, especially citrus. There are several references to their orange groves and lemon trees throughout the books.
Modern Lemonsweet with Honey and Vanilla
“Arianne drew the child away. ‘You must be hungry. We have dates and cheese and olives, and lemonsweet to drink. You ought not to eat or drink too much, though…'” – A Feast for Crows
After reviewing both recipes, it’s clear that Lemonsweet is basically lemonade. Make sense, right? A sweetened lemon beverage?
What’s interesting about the modern version, though, is that they add honey and vanilla as well!
The honey and the vanilla bean are cooked first over the stove, mixed in with some water. Once boiled, you have the option of adding some thyme or rosemary, so I threw a couple sprigs of thyme into ours.
Then the lemons are squeezed until I have enough juice. My husband helped out with this part 🙂
Then the lemon juice is strained into a pitcher, followed by the honey/vanilla mixture, and water is added to top it all off.
Technically they don’t say to strain the lemon juice in the instructions, but I had a helluva lot of seeds in mine and thought it would be for the best!
The result was quite nice! I don’t usually drink lemonade (it’s not a favorite, and tends to be too sour or sweet for me), but this was really good!
Taste: 10/10
At first taste I was going to give this a 9, but it really grew on me. I’m not a big lemonade fan, but think this is one of the best lemonades I’ve had! My husband, who is definitely a big lemon and lemonade fan, absolutely LOVED this drink.
The vanilla is subtle but there, and the honey is a really nice addition. Using honey instead of sugar seems to have helped prevent the lemonade from being overly sweet.
The vanilla/honey combination really make this drink awesome!
Difficulty: Average
The honey/vanilla mixture is where the energy is spent here; well, that and squeezing all those lemons!
Cost: Average
You will definitely need to purchase a bunch of lemons for this one, and possibly some honey and/or a vanilla bean as well. You can opt to use vanilla extract instead, however, which would be a lot cheaper than the vanilla bean.
Suggestion:
Instead of filling the pitcher up to 1 gallon, I would recommend adding some water, then tasting, and then adding more water if you feel it needs more. I found ours to be slightly too watered-down for me, and would use less water next time.
I may also try vanilla extract next time instead of the vanilla bean and see if it brings out the vanilla flavor more!
This Geek Loves Food 