An Inexpensive Homemade Beverage?

Question

I'm trying to eliminate MSG from our diet and other harmful chemicals. I didn't want to make kool-aid anymore for the kids. We have been making a lot of homemade lemonade and drinking water.
I was wondering if there were any other homemade beverages we can make. Getting tired of lemonade and don't want to give the children tea either.

Answer 1

Got this from
http://www.jamaican-recipes.com/gingerbeer.html

I grew up drinking homemade drinks . This is one of my favorites


Ingredients:


¼ lb. Ginger Root

1 lb. Sugar

½ lb. lime

3 cups water

½ cup of Ice (crushed)

Tools:

Electric Blender

Large Mixing Bowls

Fine grain Strainer



Wash the ginger root to remove any dirt or foreign matter, then cut the ginger root into tiny pieces, let us say 1/8 inch.

Put ginger in the Electric Blender one handful at a time until the Blender is ¾ ways full, each time.

Add about ½ cup of water to the ginger in the Blender. Turn the Blender switch to Puree and allow ginger to process until they are ground to a pulp.

Remove pulp and place into a large mixing bowl. Add 1 cup water to pulp.


Using your clean hand, squeeze the pulp in your palm, allowing the juice to flow through the strainer. Put the squeezed pulp on a plate to the side.

Repeat this process until all the pulp is squeezed. Add water to the squeezed pulp that you put on a plate earlier, in a mixing bowl.

Squeeze this pulp again. Drain ginger beer in another container through the strainer so as to stop any remaining pulp from getting in the final product.

Mix all ingredients together. Your drink is ready.



CAUTION : This drink is very harsh and pungent. It will burn your throat a little. My suggestion is dilute this drink to your level of tolerance.

YAH MON!!!

Answer 2

What about herbal tea? You can get lots of cool flavors, like fruits and stuff. Blueberry, cherry-berry, peach, orange or mandarin...there are a lot of good options.

If you can find it, one of my all-time favorite drinks is called jamaica (yeah, like the country, but not capitalized. In Mexico, it's pronounced, "hha-my-kuh."

It's iced sweetened rose hip tea. Gorgeous natural red color, fruity/slightly floral flavor...mmmm. Make it strong.

What about limeade? I definitely prefer limeade to lemonade. Citrus punches, fruit fizzes (put some fruit juice and fizzy water together. Like, a juice that's too sweet on its own, such as grape juice--whoa! So much sugar!)

Answer 3

really lemon aid, and water, or other fruit flavored drinking water is about all you can do other than homeade oj which isnt really inexpensive, or other such citrus type juices....maybe fruit smoothies (also not really all that cheap if making homemade

Answer 4

Sprite and Cranberry juice

Answer 5

look up recipes for "aguas frescas"

"aguas frescas" are light fruit beverages are are usually made from pineapples, cantelopes, tamarind, papaya, etc.

here's some more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguas_frescas

Answer 6

TANG!!! If the astronauts drink it, it's gotta be good for you!