Fresh Lime Soda

One of my favorite drinks in the hot muggy weather of Kolkata is Fresh Lime Soda. It is a universal drink, made from soda (club or any other fizzy ale) fresh limes , salt or sugar depending on your preference. This drink is widely available , from roadside stalls to fancy five star restaurants and is liked by most people. When we were in Kolkata last December, J got a taste of it and now its his favorite drink too! Anyway, ever since we’ve been back we’ve been having our American version of this drink frequently, and now that the weather has started getting warmer, we have it at least every other night. Also, on the weekends we’ve started making them alcoholic as well, and it works really well as a cocktail!

Our recipe is suited to our extra salty palette, but it can be adjusted easily by adding some sugar instead , however using sprite or any other citrus soda, doesn’t really work that well. It needs the bitterness of seltzer or club soda.

Fresh Lime Soda w/ Gin :

2 limes ( or 1 lime and 1 lemon)

Seltzer Water ( Club soda is second, tonic water – a distant third)

heaps of salt (or sugar, or a mix of both, if you don’t like salty drinks)

a pinch of black pepper to make it interesting

Gin

Lemon wedge for garnish

Its best to make the lime soda first and combine one parts gin with 3 parts of the soda.  Howevr, with the sweeter version light colored rum works better than the gin.

***photo: google images ***