How to make frog lemonade: The old-fashioned fruity drink from New Orleans

Frog lemonade recipe (1910)

Mother has just brought me a glass of frog lemonade. You never heard of it? Probably not — it’s a Southern drink that is perfectly delicious, and I know you’ll bless me one of these hot days if I give you the recipe. The lemonade is served from a punch bowl and garnished with sliced fruit.

Frog lemonade recipe (revisited in 1983)

Makes: 20 servings
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Standing time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

Juice of 2 dozen large lemons
2 cups sugar
2 quarts water
Juice of 1 large pineapple (see note)
1 quart seltzer water, chilled
2 pints strawberries, hulled
Ice cubes or 1 large piece of ice
20 very thin slices each of lemon and pineapple, for garnish
Crushed ice

Directions

1. Mix lemon juice, sugar and water in a large punch bowl. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally to dissolve the sugar.

2. Just before serving, stir in pineapple juice and seltzer water; mix well. Add strawberries and ice cubes. Garnish with lemon and pineapple slices. Serve in glasses 1/4-full of crushed ice, making sure that several strawberries and a slice or two of lemon and pineapple are in each glass.

Note: To make fresh pineapple juice, cut peeled pineapple into pieces. Put in blender or food processor, a few pieces at a time. Puree, adding a little water [1/2 cup in total] until very smooth. Strain through fine sieve.

The history of frog lemonade (1894)

Frog lemonade was yesterday the wonder of New Orleans, and its mysterious concoction is a source or universal inquiry.

What in the world is frog lemonade?” “Say have you heard at the new drink that the Picayune says is to be sold at the Picayune’s table at the newsboys’ festival?”

“Frog lemonade? Do you mean to say there is such a thing as frog lemonade?”

“Will there be real live frogs in it?” and “Shall we drink frogs, lemonade and all?”

“Oh, it is impossible.”

“You can’t make lemonade out of frogs?” etc… were the thousand and one remarks heard on the streets yesterday.

Woman’s World and Work has been veritably besieged by anxious housewives for recipes of the mysterious new beverage, and it is safe to say that never before has a prospective drink excited so much curious inquiry.

To all those anxious questionings, the answer is made that all who want to know what frog lemonade is must pay a visit to the Picayune’s weather prophet at the festival, and the will have an opportunity of tasting the wonderful beverage which Mrs Joseph A Hincks has originated and named in honor of our frog. Our frog is a mascot, and will never have more right to the title than in the triumph with which the new beverage will be voted the popular drink at the festival.

A prominent gentleman of the Louisiana Boat Club yesterday asked the writer if “Frog lemonade would make you croak?” and the answer was given. “Come and see, and if you do not croak for more, you are no connoisseur of a good drink.”

Frog lemonade has swept the town, and the popular cry is, “We must have a taste of that funny drink.”