Bottled Hospitality

          

For quite a while now, I have been wishing for some sort of reusable, non-plastic water bottles to keep in the fridge for offering to those guests who pop in on a quick errand.  It seems that we always end up visiting on the front porch for a little while and they always decline any offers for a drink of something cold, insisting that they won't be here long. :-)

Through various searches, I discovered the EZ Cap bottles, designed primarily for micro brewers. (I ordered mine from here.)  Problem solved.  And so cool! 

But, I wasn't content with just having water bottles in the fridge and I decided to try bottling lemonade.  I simply mixed up a batch of lemonade (lemon juice, sugar & water...not powder), and heated it just to a boil on the stove to semi-sterilize things.  Then using a funnel, I poured the hot liquid into the pre-heated bottles (they were sitting in hot water) and put the top on.  I wanted to see how they would keep before I offered them to anyone, so I left them in the fridge for a month.  Well, today I popped the top on a lemonade bottle and heard the swish of air as the seal was broken.  After a sniff and a sip we declared it yum!  The lemonade tasted like I had just mixed it up. :-)