Browse recipes

Tamarind loosened in hot water and sweetened into a sour-brown cooler with a long, mouth-watering finish. Sharper and more savory than it looks.

Dried hibiscus steeped briefly, sweetened while hot and chilled hard: tart, cranberry-deep and an almost unreasonable red. The most common agua fresca in Mexico.

Soda chanh: lime juice and sugar syrup in a tall glass, topped with soda water and stirred at the table. Three ingredients, correctly assembled.

Boricha: roasted barley simmered into a nutty, toasty, faintly sweet brown tea, drunk cold all summer instead of water. No sugar at all.

Dried chrysanthemum flowers and goji berries steeped into a pale gold, honeyed-floral tea, served cold with the softened berries still in the glass.

Gunpowder green tea brewed strong over a fistful of spearmint, sweetened hot and poured over ice. Bracing, fragrant and very sweet, as it should be.

Ripe watermelon blended with water and lime into something lighter and more drinkable than juice. Five minutes of work and it tastes like the middle of summer.

A fierce, unfermented ginger beer: fresh ginger blended, steeped and strained into a syrup, then topped with soda water. All of the heat, none of the waiting.

Lemon juice and a whole bunch of mint blitzed with ice into a pale-green frozen slush. The drink of every Levantine summer street.

Green mango simmered soft, pulped, and spiced with cumin and black salt into a pale, tart-savory cooler. Drunk across North India specifically to survive the summer.

Elderflower cordial cut with lemon, cucumber and mint over a lot of ice. Barely a recipe, and the most refreshing thing in the book.

Bruised lemongrass and ginger simmered into a fragrant, faintly citrus syrup, then chilled and lengthened with lime. Clean and grassy rather than sweet.

Indian lemonade, made savory with black salt and roasted cumin. Sweet, sour, salty and faintly smoky. The fastest cure there is for a hot afternoon.

Strawberries crushed into lemonade with a handful of basil. The basil sounds odd and is the entire reason to make it.

A pale, fragrant cordial of lemon, sugar and rose water, diluted to order. Floral and cold and old-fashioned, and it keeps for weeks.

A dark, herby, aggressively savory spiced water: mint, cilantro, tamarind and roasted cumin. Drunk as an appetiser, and it genuinely works as one.

Rice and cinnamon soaked overnight, blended and strained into a cloudy, faintly sweet, milky drink. Served very cold, it is the standard partner to anything spicy.

Fresh pineapple blended with ginger and lime into a thick, golden punch. Sweet, sour and hot all at once, and it takes ten minutes.

Gnamakoudji: raw ginger blended, steeped and strained, then sharpened with lime and sweetened. Sold ice-cold on every roadside from Bamako to Abidjan.

Hibiscus steeped with ginger, clove and orange peel. The Caribbean Christmas drink, deep red and warmly spiced rather than simply tart.