In the movie ”The Long, Hot Summer,” two women sit on the veranda of a Mississippi plantation, trying to keep cool. It`s hot, very hot. The wilting ladies are drinking the beverage that symbolizes summer-lemonade.
What would summer be without a frosty glass of lemonade-pink or regular-with lots of ice, sugar and perhaps a few seeds to accidentally swallow?
Lemons are the hottest-selling fruit in summer, said Lonnie Waits, district sales manager for Sunkist Growers Inc. in Memphis. Lemon sales account for ”between 50 and 55 percent of the annual sales during the peak summer months: June, July, August and September.”
More people make fresh lemonade-or iced tea with lemon-when the weather is hot, Waits said. Some restaurants serve water with a wedge of lemon in it. ”It`s actually a year-round fruit,” Waits said. ”People on low-sodium diets . . . use lemon juice in place of salt. It enhances the taste of vegetables and soft drinks. Lemon juice on bananas keeps them from turning brown.”
In the summer of 1990, children are still setting up lemonade stands, just as they always have. And, perhaps to help them out, a number of companies have developed lemonades that look and taste like homemade.
Procter & Gamble Co. recently introduced Citrus Hill Fresh Recipe Lemonade, Fresh Recipe Lemonade with a Splash of Cherry and Fresh Recipe Lemonade with a Splash of Lime. The lemonade comes in 12-ounce frozen concentrates. No preservatives and no artificial colors.
Procter & Gamble claims its new products are the first lemonade product innovations to come out in a long time. Until now, consumers just had regular lemonade or regular lemonade with pink coloring.
Paul Newman plunged into the lemonade act a couple of years ago with his Newman`s Own Old Fashioned Roadside Virgin Lemonade. The product was created from wife Joanne Woodward`s secret family recipe that was passed down by seven generations of her Georgia family. The profits from sales of the Newman`s Own products (the company also manufactures salad dressing, spaghetti sauce and popcorn) go to charity.
The full-strength lemonade is pasteurized and has a higher proportion of lemon juice than most other commercially available lemonades. It`s made from ripe lemons, water, fructose and sugar and has no preservatives. It`s sold in refrigerated half-gallon cartons.
Perhaps it`s the same lemonade that was used in ”The Long, Hot Summer.” After all, Joanne Woodward played one of the lemonade-sipping women. –
