Refreshment!

originally published Friday, May 25th

Summer Beverages

It's hot today! Great weather for a holiday weekend and a picnic. Hot weather means drinking a lot of liquids. In the winter and fall, I'm satisfied with drinking water most of the time but when summer comes I want variety. However, packaged drinks are often extremely sweet and contain strange preservatives. It's easy to make your own refreshing drinks if you keep a few simple ingredients around the house, such as teas, fruit juice, seltzer, a natural sweetener such as honey. Use them for entertaining, picnics or just keep a pitcher in the fridge for yourself.
My favorite summer beverages usually include some type of chilled tea, fruit juice and a simple syrup made from honey, water and fresh ginger slices. I also love fruit juices with seltzer added.
Here's an easy recipe for a fruity tea/punch that everyone loves. It includes fruit and hibiscus tea as the base. Hibiscus lends a vibrant red color to the punch, and it also provides health benefits.
When you're making a tea to serve chilled, remember to make it strong (usually 4 tea bags to 3 cups water.) I also recommend making a large batch of simple syrup to keep in the fridge for sweetening on the fly. Enjoy!

Hibiscus Tea Cooler

You will need:
• 1 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and sliced
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup cold water

• 4 bags Tazo Passion herbal tea (or any Hibiscus, berry or fruit tea such as Red Zinger)
• 3 cups boiling water

• 3/4 cups fresh orange juice
• 1/2 cup peach nectar or juice
• orange slices for garnish

What to do:
• Combine honey, cold water and ginger slices in a small sauce pan
• Combine over low heat until honey is dissolved, turn off heat and steep ginger for 30 minutes
• Pour 3 cups boiling water over 4 tea bags, steep 5 minutes and remove bags, squeezing out liquid
• Add orange juice and peach nectar to brewed tea
• Remove ginger slices from honey-ginger syrup
• Add 1/2 cup honey-ginger syrup to brewed tea and juice mixture
• Serve over ice, garnished with fresh orange slices

Serves 3+