Yesterday we opened our pool and had our first cookout of the season. My mom came up from Baltimore and brought lemon sticks with her. I love lemon sticks and I always forget that people who are not from Baltimore aren’t always familiar with them.
Our friends who were visiting thought we were kidding when we told them to just drink through the peppermint like a straw. They really did think we were playing a joke on them and wouldn’t try it until they saw us do it first. But once they tried them they were hooked and said they were going to start taking them to cookouts, too.
A lemon stick is just a half of a lemon with a porous peppermint stick in it. You have to use the soft, thick, porous kind of peppermint stick. Just drink through the peppermint like a straw and it tastes like you are drinking flavored lemonade. The juice from the lemon gets sweetened by the candy.
It’s surprisingly refreshing and quite possibly the easiest recipe for summer of all time.
Make sure, though, not to put the peppermint into the lemon until right before you serve them. The longer they sit out, the more the acid in the lemon eats through the peppermint sticks and the peppermint starts to dissolve after a while.
They would also be a great addition to a lemonade stand this summer.
Let me know if you try them!
UPDATE: For those of you who asked on Facebook where you can get the kind of peppermint sticks that I am talking about, they do have them on Amazon. I’m adding a link here, although we usually just pick them up in the candy aisle of our regular grocery store.
You may also like my Sweet Tea Vodka Marinated Pork Chops:
ReallY? I just have to try this!