Let's get this straight right now: In the US the Webster 1913 definition is the valid one. Lemonade in the US of A is a drink of lemons, sugar and water, served chilled or on ice, usually from a pitcher on a porch, or perhaps, a veranda. American lemonade is cloudy in appearance due to particulates in the lemon juice.

In the UK and from my experience the rest of Europe, lemonade is a carbonated beverage that is clear, and tastes of lemon. The closest thing we have to that are things like Sprite or Seven-Up, but those are decidedly lemon-lime flavored drinks, which is actually quite different.

This is one of the strange situations where the British version of somehing is inferior to the American one. Brits, when you come to America, hie thee to a Hot Dog on a Stick in the mall and have them draw you a glass of lemonade from the clear plastic dispenser in which you can clearly see the ice and lemons, and enjoy.

Note however, that lemonade (US) will make you thirsty, again because of that pesky lemon juice tickling the back of your throat.

As a tradition, the commercial British "lemonade" - carbonated water, sugar, and a hint of citric acid - dates back only to that particular nadir of British cuisine which lasted from somewhere around the war to the mid-1970s, a period when the tendency to boil everyting to death overlapped with wartine and post-war shortages and the industrialisation of food production encouraged by successive governments' single-minded cheap food policies. Real lemonade, with actual lemons in it, did survive, but only for those whose mothers made it (un nation de boutiquiers, maybe, but the American kid's lemonade stall is indeed unknown over here).

Fortunately, the relentless ferreting out of the past in the interest of being able to introduce more value added, pseudo-authentic Deep England-style lines onto the ever-growing length of supermarket shelves in the shopping cathedrals of the fairly united kingdom has led to reasonably palatable versions of real lemonade, both still and fizzy, being available once more. Just avoid the tranparent stuff.

Lem`on*ade" (?), n. [F. limonade; cf. Sp. limonada, It. limonata. See Lemon.]

A beverage consisting of lemon juice mixed with water and sweetened.

 

© Webster 1913.

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