Scroll down to find recipes for every kind of delicious shower beverages
from hot to cold to spicy and tangy!

Refreshing Lemonades and Citrus Coolers,

Warm and Soothing Hot Beverages

The Perfect Pot of Tea

• 1 12-ounce package frozen unsweetened raspberries (about 3 cups)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 tablespoon grated lemon peel
• 1 cup fresh lemon juice
• Fresh raspberries (optional)
• Lemon slices

Combine frozen raspberries, sugar, and 1/2 cup water in a medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and berries thaw. Increase heat and boil 3 minutes. Strain raspberry mixture into bowl, pressing on solids or extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. Mix lemon peel into raspberry syrup in bowl. Chill until cold. Stir raspberry syrup, lemon juice, and sparkling water in large pitcher to blend. Fill glasses with ice cubes. Pour raspberry lemonade into glasses. Add fresh raspberries to each glass, if desired. Garnish with lemon slices and serve. Serves 6.


Cranberry Pineapple Punch

• 2 1-quart bottles chilled cranberry juice cocktail
• A 1-quart 14 ounce can chilled unsweetened pineapple juice
• 2 cups chilled seltzer water
• 2 cups chilled ginger ale
• Garnish: Fresh pineapple spears, if desired

In a large bowl, combine the cranberry juice cocktail, the pineapple juice, the ginger ale, and the seltzer water, add an ice block, and serve the punch in glasses garnished with the pineapple spears. Makes about 20 cups.



Orangeade

• 6 cups fresh orange juice
• 4 1/2 cups chilled seltzer or club soda
• Garnish: orange slices

In a large pitcher, stir together juice and seltzer or club soda and garnish with orange slices. Serve in tall glasses half-filled with ice. Makes about 10 cups.



Citrus Cooler (Blended fruit juices give this slightly sweetened drink its zip)

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup fresh orange juice
• 1 cup fresh grapefruit juice
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• Ice cubes

Stir 1 cup of water and sugar in small saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil. Transfer syrup to pitcher and chill until cold. Add orange juice, grapefruit juice, lime juice, and lemon juice to pitcher and stir to blend. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Keep chilled) Fill 4 glasses with ice. Pour citrus cooler over and serve.



Blackberry Lemonade

• about 6 lemons
• 4 cups water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup picked-over fresh blackberries
• Garnish: lemon slices

With a vegetable peeler remove zest from 4 lemons and squeeze enough juice from these lemons and remaining 2 lemons to measure 1 cup. In a saucepan boil 2 cups water with sugar, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Add zest, lemon juice, and remaining 2 cups of water and cool. In a food processor or blender puree blackberries and stir into lemonade. Pour blackberry lemonade through sieve into a pitcher and chill. Serve lemonade over ice in tall glasses, garnished with lemon slices. Makes 6 cups.


Minted Lemonade

• 2 cups sugar
• 6 cups water
• 2 cups fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup mint leaves

To make the syrup: place 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved and let cool. Place lemon juice in a large pitcher, add remaining 4 cups water and 1 cup of the syrup or more to taste. Stir in mint leaves and refrigerate for 1 hour. Serve over ice.


Delicious and Soothing Hot Beverages



Hot Tea Punch (Here is a warming drink for a chilly day)

• 6 cups water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 8 whole cloves
• 5 tea bags
• 1 1/2 cups orange juice
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

Bring first 4 ingredients to boil in heavy saucepan over high heat until sugar dissolves. Boil 6 minutes. Remove from heat. Add tea bags. Cover and let steep 10 minutes. Discard tea bags. Add orange and lemon juices to punch. (Can be prepared a day ahead) Cover and refrigerate. Rewarm before continuing. Using slotted spoon, remove, whole spices. Serve hot. Makes about 6 cups.



Mulled Apple Cider with Orange and Ginger

• 8 cups apple cider
• A 3-inch cinnamon stick
• 10 whole cloves
• 1 navel orange, peeled and sliced cross-wise
• A two-inch piece of peeled fresh ginger, cut into 6 slices

In a large saucepan combine the cider, the cinnamon stick, the cloves, the orange and the ginger and simmer the mixture for 20 minutes. Strain the mixture through a sieve into a heatproof pitcher and serve the mulled cider warm. Makes about 8 cups.


Creamy Hot Chocolate

• 1/3 cup well-chilled heavy cream
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)
• 2 cups whole milk

In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat cream with sugar until it just holds stiff peaks. Chop chocolate and reserve 2 teaspoons. In a small saucepan, heat milk with remaining chocolate over moderate heat, stirring, until it just comes to a simmer. Pour hot chocolate into small demitasse' and top with whipped cream and reserved chocolate.



A Perfect Pot of Tea

Empty your kettle, then fill it with freshly-drawn water from the cold tap. Put the kettle on and, just before it comes to the boil, pour a generous dash of the hot water into you teapot (glazed china or earthenware for preference), swirling it round and round inside the pot before pouring it away. (Warning: this is not a meaningless ritual, but ensures that the water stays at boiling point when it hits the tea, encouraging the proper opening for the leaves.)

Dole out one heaped teaspoon of tea leaves for each person and one for the pot, straight into the warmed teapot. The kettle will have reached a galloping boil by this time, so pour the water over the tea. Take care that the water is not long boiling; over boiled water loses oxygen and results in bitter muddy brew of tea.

Allow the tea to stand and brew for three to six minutes according to leaf size (less time for small leaves, more for large ones) Smaller grades (known as briken Pekoes and Fannings) Larger leafed teas (technically termed Orange Pekoes or Pekoes).

Give the tea a good stir and pour it, using a strainer to catch leaves. If you take your tea with milk, you should add it to the cup, cold and fresh, before pouring the tea. The first cup is perfect, but while that is being drunk, the rest of the pot stews and is tainted by tannin. To solve this, it is recommended that you use a tea-ball infuser, removing it after the requisite number of minutes. Tea bags are never a good idea. The tea they provide is simply not the same. However, if you choose to use tea bags make sure you remove them as well. If you make sure that tea leaves are removed after the right time, you can safely employ a tea cozy to keep the rest hot, and each cup will be as bright and fresh and steaming as the first.

Tea drinking is one of those rare pleasures, which is both civilized and cost next to nothing. Apart from water, tea is the least expensive drink in the world even if you buy the very best. It also makes a wonderful beverage to add to a shower.


A Tea Guide

ASSAM - Brisk, bracing and strongly colored, this is what the British popularly expect form a cup of tea. Excellent in winter and fowl weather. The boldest of teas.

DARJEELING -Famous as the Champagne among teas, light-colored, with a distinctive bouquet often described as flowery or blackcurrant like. A delicate wine like Muscatel flavor.

CELON - Grown at the high altitudes which provide the best growing conditions for tea, Ceylon teas are bright, steady, and turn an attractive golden color when milk is added. Their name includes teas from Dimbula, Uva, and Nuwara Eliya.

KEEMUN - the tea of Imperial China, clean, delicate, with a light fruity sweetness on its breath. Its liquor is pale and the Chinese say it has the flavor of an orchid. Drink with or without milk.

LAPSANG SOUCHONG - A bracing large leafed tea, this is either loved or hated, leaving no room for ambivalence. It tastes of wood smoke and has a tarry pungency (supposedly owing to the particular soil of the Fujian Province of China where it is grown.

JASMINE - A large leafed tea, semi-fermented, scented with Jasmine flowers (which are generally left in the tea, later to expand beautifully and aromatically in your teapot of boiling water).

GUNPOWDER -One of China's oldest teas, its large greyish-green leaves are rolled into pellets resembling lead shot. You need less tea than usual to make a pot of Gunpowder. Its liquor contradicts it belligerent name, being thin, pale, shy, slightly bitter and straw-colored.

LUNG SHING - Highly esteemed by the Chinese, this tea has a delicate vegetative flavor, ethereal and slightly sweet. Its liquor is a pale emerald color. Grown in Taiwan (Formosa).

FORMOSA OOLONG - A partially-fermented China tea which holds an exquisite flavor of ripe peaches. Its liquor is the color of amber. At its best, it is full of leaf tips. There are other Oolong teas from China, but this one is beyond compare.

EARL GREY - In 1830 Earl Grey received a delicately scented blend of tea from China. Today, Earl Grey tea is generally made from large-leafed China tea, Darjeeling, and oil of bergamont (which is a pear-shaped Mediterranean citrus fruit). It is wonderfully fragrant, and good with cakes and sweet things.

LADY LONDONBERRY - This lady was a popular society hostess during the first quarter of this century. She had her own blend of Ceylon, Indian and Formosa tea made for her by Jacksons of Picadilly.

ENGLISH BREAKFAST TEA - Between ten and forty teas are used in each sort of blend. Good quality blends of Indian and Ceylon teas are often called Breakfast teas. English Breakfast tea is usually a strong blend of small leafed Indian and Ceylon teas, full flavored and satisfying. Irish breakfast tea is even stronger, comprising a high proportion of Assam with a little fine flavored Ceylon, giving a bold rising cup. (Information from the London Ritz Hotel book of Afternoon Tea. Written By: Helen Simpson and published by Arbor House).

Top of Page