101 Things to Cook on Your Grill (Not Including Burgers) - Part 2

Smoked Lemons

It started over at Urban Diner, and a brief mention of smoked lemonade. As I was planning on smoking some ribs for Canada Day, some lemons were purchased, and an experiment began.

As you can see, the colour looks really good. That was after 3 hours at 225C using cherry as the smoke wood. The fruit was very loose at this point, so sqeezing them to get the juice was a piece of cake. As a side benefit, some of the lemon juice from the top rack in the smoker dripped onto the ribs on the lower rack producing an unexpected citrus note in the ribs. Something to remember for next time.

The lemonade was a simple 1:1:1 ration for water sugar and the smoked lemon juice, although if I did it again I'd reduce the amount of sugar. The result? Very interesting. My wife didn't like it at all, my son thought enough of it to take it to work with him where he said it received rave reviews.

For me, I'm not sure what I think. I don't hate it. I've had several glasses, some spiked (gin & vodka so far) and some not. I think what I'm trying to deal with is that the smokiness is not at all a flavour I would have associated with lemon juice. It would be like taking a big gulp of milk and having it taste like... oh I don't know ... cheese?

But I'm glad I did it, if for no other reason than to see the look on guests faces when I ask them if they'd like a glass of smoked lemonade.