One interesting thing about the mid-western United States is this fascination with County and State Fairs. It’s really a celebration of agriculture and may even have roots in European harvest festivals. I don’t know. But one thing is for certain: farm animals smell bad.
But there’s silver lining: Fair Food. One favorite of mine is the tremendously over-priced Lemon Shake-up. At the fair I suspect that they use corn syrup instead of simple syrup, but it’s difficult to say. At any rate, here is the recipe for Lemon Shake-Ups, posted here so I won’t lose it.
This recipe allows you to prepare a simple syrup that you can use to make several batches of shake-ups:
2 cups sugar (380 grams)
1 cup water (240 ml)
Combine sugar and water in saucepan. Boil for 5 minutes. Cool and refrigerate up to a week.
To make two shake-ups, cut a lemon in half and juice each half into a tall glass. Fill the glasses with ice. Add the lemon rind and 3 Tablespoons (45ml) of simple syrup to each glass (some like more, some like less). Fill glasses with water, cover and shake well. Don’t skimp on the shaking part.