Celebrate with the Delicious Mardi Gras Drinks --Non-Alcoholic, Too

Prohibition Sour  "A Drink for Men"

Celebrate Mardi Gras in style with these throw-back drinks from the Prohibition Era. Tasty and easy-to-make, they are a far cry from what we call in the Midwest "pop" and everyone else calls "soda."

During the thirteen years of Prohibition from the sales, manufacture, and transport of alcoholic beverages some folks turned to boot-leg beverages made in bathtub or basement stills. Some folks gave the "high sign" and slouched into dark speakeasys.  Others discovered the joys of tasty beverages and super ice cream sodas and sundaes made before their eyes in sparkling bright soda fountains--some even occupying remodeled saloons.

Keep a bottle of homemade flavor concentrate in your refrigerator or freezer and mix with purchased carbonated water or in one of those new-fangled "Soda Stream" machines. You and your guests will be refreshed before you can say "Al Capone."

Simple Syrup Based Flavor Concentrates

Let's start with the flavor concentrates -- and they all start with Simple Syrup.. Which is as simple as it's name suggests.

Simple Syrup

1 cup water
1 cup white granulated sugar

Put the water into a medium pot. Gradually add the sugar. Warm over low heat, stirring gently until the sugar dissolved. Do not even bring to a simmer. Just heat it enough to encourage the sugar to dissolve.  That's it!  Simple syrup keeps for days in the refrigerator.

Lemon, Lime, Orange Flavored Syrup

1/4 cup simple syrup
1 tablespoon frozen concentrated juice mix, such as lemonade, limeade, or orange juice

Stir the concentrate into the syrup. Use immediately, or store in the refrigerator for two or three days, or in the freezer for longer.  NOTE: you can use any frozen concentrate.  You can also make flavor concentrates by mixing actual fruit juices with the simple syrup or infusing the syrup with fruit peels, ginger root, and other ingredients. This is just faster and easier. And that's what we like here at Potluck Paradise -- tasty, easy, and fast.

Minnehaha Maid -- invented in Minnesota 

Minnehaha Maid

Makes enough to flavor about 2 liters of carbonated water 

or 16 5-ounce servings

1/2 cup cranberry juice

1/2 cup white grape juice 

1/2 cup lemon syrup

1/2 cup simple syrup (recipe above)

Combine the syrups. Use one ounce to a 7-ounce glass. Add a small scoop of crushed ice and about 4 ounces of carbonated water. Finish with a twist of lemon.

Prohibition Sour

Enough for three liters of carbonated water

Or 12 7-ounce servings

1 1/2 cups lemon syrup

3/4 cup orange syrup

juice from 6 limes

Mix the syrups and lime juice together. Use 1 1/2 ounces syrup to an 8-ounce glass. Add small scoop of crushed ice and 6 ounces of carbonated water. Finish with a slice of lime