'Winterize' Summer Beverages for Surprising Results by Lisa Messinger on Creators.com

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'Winterize' Summer Beverages for Surprising Results

Although summer is the season for icy, refreshing beverages, soda and flavored beverage sales, statistics prove we certainly don't stop hitting the bottle for the remainder of the year. However, when it comes to homemade versions it's often another story.

Big pitchers that housed crisp iced tea and tangy lemonade all summer tend to remain dry through the autumn and winter months in favor of hot beverages. That's a shame because slight seasonal adjustments to these crowd-pleasers make for easy ways to garner lots of positive culinary attention.

Food Network's Ellie Krieger, a nutritionist who is also a best-selling cookbook author and contributor to More magazine, provides a tasty template that can be extracted from a delicious recipe for fruit-filled sage iced tea. The prudent plan starts with boiling honey, water and a hearty fresh herb like sage in a saucepan and then simmering for 5 minutes.

Remove mixture from the heat, add your favorite tea bags, steep for 30 minutes to one hour and expect your kitchen to take on the lovely holiday scent of the herb you've cooked. Carefully strain liquid and discard solids. Puree until your seasonal fruit is in liquid form. Or use a sauce, like spiced applesauce or cranberry sauce, combine with the honey-herb-tea liquid and chill for a wonderful treat.

The combination of robust flavors, boiling and steeping gives the results a strong, lasting and unforgettable seasonal slant.

Your choices of tea, honey, herbs and fruit can all pump up the seasonal sumptuousness, like:

Tea: cinnamon spice; apple-cinnamon; orange; Earl Grey; chamomile; peppermint.

Herb: sage; rosemary; lemon balm; spearmint; sweet fennel.

Honey: horsemint; maple; citrus; black sage; blackberry; sourwood.

Fruit: apples; pears; persimmon; pummelo; cranberry sauce; pomegranate juice.

Also consider grinding in well-matched spice to the steeping liquid, such as nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice or cloves.

Sunny lemonade can be similarly spiced for unusual and memorable results.

This recipe from the popular magazine and website Taste of Home, which features cinnamon sticks and cloves — and can be served chilled or warmed — should serve as a springboard to give you lots of additional ideas.

SPICED LEMONADE

6 cups water

3/4 cup sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

6 whole cloves

1 large lime, thinly sliced

1 lemon, thinly sliced

3/4 cup lemon juice

Ice cubes

Additional cinnamon sticks, for serving, optional

Yields 8 to 10 servings.

In a large saucepan, bring 4 cups of the water, sugar, the 2 cinnamon sticks and cloves to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat; carefully strain and discard cinnamon sticks and cloves. Cool.

Pour into a large pitcher. Stir in lime, lemon, lemon juice and remaining water. Chill at least 1 hour. Serve in chilled glass over ice. Garnish with cinnamon stick, if desired. Can also be served warm.

— Taste of Home

CRANBERRY SAGE ICED TEA

10 cups water

1/2 cup honey

8 large sage leaves

8 white or black tea bags

8 ounces cranberry sauce

Yields 8 to 10 servings.

Place 3 cups of the water, honey and sage leaves in a saucepan and bring to a boil, being careful not to let it boil over or foam excessively. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add tea bags. Let mixture steep at least 30 minutes or up to 1 hour. Carefully strain.

Meanwhile, put the cranberry sauce in a blender with 1/2 cup water and blend until in liquid form.

In a pitcher, combine the honey-tea liquid with the cranberry liquid and 6 & 1/2 cups water. Serve chilled.

— Adapted from Ellie Krieger/Food Network, www.more.com

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "Cooks' Books" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.