Store-Bought Lemonade Tastes 10x Better With This Herb Duo Mixed In

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When life gives you lemons, sometimes there still isn't time to make any darned lemonade. Premade varieties, however, have come a long way. The bottles of Simply Lemonade on your average supermarket or grocery store shelves, for example, taste about as close as you can get to fresh squeezed without having to, you know, freshly squeeze anything. Whatever brand you prefer, there are still some herbaceous ways to tailor lemonade a little more to your taste. A sprig of mint and some edible lavender flower buds — not the everyday stuff that might grow in your garden — are a deliciously elegant way to make your sip even more fragrant and refreshing.

Not only does mint's naturally occurring menthol make your drink seem even colder, it's famously delicious with the sweetness you find in most mass market lemonades. Lavender's floral quality is also emboldened by those sugars; the perfumey character that some might find too strong is somewhat blunted by both the bold mint, and the subtle undertones of what was once a much more sour citrus. A little goes a long way in either case. You want the herbs to enhance your lemonade, not to make it approximate chewing gum or potpourri.

Smell and taste work in tandem, with the former accounting for a lot of what we attribute to the latter. As aromatic as mint and culinary lavender are, you could do little more than garnish your lemonade glass and still benefit from their presence. It would certainly look pretty, but you can also get a little more flavor out of the mint in particular with a modicum of labor.

Gently muddling the mint at the bottom of your glass with something like a wooden pestle before you add the lemonade makes it even more powerful. Too much mashing results in a swampy, bitter mess, however, so aim to just barely break it down to release its signature aroma. Crushing lavender can likewise make it less pleasant, creating that cosmetic effect that's better left to an eau de toilette. A lavender sprig garnish, instead, gives you the essence of the flower without evoking any notes of a magazine cologne sample — all without having to break out the juicer.