The Creamy Olive Oil Lemon Drink That Drinks Like Lemonade

We didn't come up with this one.

The olive oil lemon drink went around the internet a while back, a whole lemon and a spoonful of oil dropped into a blender, and by the time enough people had sent it to us there were forty versions floating around. Most of them promise better skin and to reduce bloating, but even if it doesn’t, it still tastes great and the olive oil makes this drink. 

The whole lemon part is the bit that stops people. Peel and all, straight in. The first time you make it you will stand there watching the blender wondering whether you have ruined a perfectly good lemon. You haven't. What pours out is pale gold and thick, closer to a smoothie than to juice, and over ice on a warm morning it is better than it has any right to be.

Why Olive Oil Belongs in Lemonade

Ordinary lemonade is sour and then sweet and then it's over. Nothing underneath it. An olive oil lemon drink is a different thing entirely.

The part of a lemon you actually recognize as lemon is the smell rather than the sourness, and those compounds dissolve into fat instead of water, so the oil pulls them forward and holds on. The lemon ends up tasting more like a lemon than a sour mess.

Then there is what happens in the blender. Spinning at full speed, the oil breaks into droplets fine enough to stay suspended in the water, and that is where the creaminess comes from. There is no cream in this, though people assume there is.

And there is the finish. A fresh Sicilian oil leaves a peppery catch at the back of your throat, and against honey and citrus it gives the drink somewhere to end up. Bright first, then sweet, and a second after you swallow you get a little bit of pepper from the oil.

A Detour, Because It's Relevant

Blending olive oil with lemon and water is not a new idea and it is certainly not an internet idea.

In Sicily, there is a sauce called salmoriglio. Olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, salt, and a little warm water are beaten in until it thickens and turns cloudy. It goes over grilled fish and it has been made that way for a very long time. Same principle exactly: oil and citrus and water forced together into something creamier than any of them are alone. So when this drink started going around, we recognized it. Different sugar, different time of day, same physics.

The Whole Lemon Is the Point

The peel is where a lemon keeps its perfume. Squeeze one and you get acid. Scratch the outside of one and your kitchen smells like lemon for an hour. Blending the fruit whole means you get both instead of only the sour half.

The pith is the part worth a thought, the white layer just under the skin. It is bitter, and on a thick-rinded lemon you will taste it, so shave a strip or two of the white off with a knife before it goes in. On a thin-skinned lemon, don't bother. Seeds are easier than people expect: cut the lemon into quarters, flick out the ones you can see, ignore the rest. The strainer handles them.

Don't Skip the Salt

It is the easiest thing in the recipe to leave out and you shouldn't. Salt turns bitterness down and everything else up. In a drink built on lemon peel and honey that is the entire job. It takes the edge off the rind, makes the honey taste more like honey, and the separate parts stop competing and start reading as one drink.

And you probably won't taste it as salt, but you will notice it missing if you forget it.

Which Olive Oil to Use

You are drinking this one. No garlic, no heat, no bread. Whatever is in the bottle is what is in the glass, and a bland oil has nowhere to hide.

Most supermarket olive oil has been sitting somewhere for a year or more and tastes flat. It will not wreck the drink. It just will not do anything for it.

Ours comes off one hillside in Cefalà Diana, in northern Sicily, on land our family has farmed since the 1800s. Nocellara del Belice and Biancolilla olives are picked by hand in the fall, pressed within forty-eight hours. That speed is the reason there is any pepper left in it by the time it reaches you, and it carries three to five times the polyphenols of a typical mass-market oil, which is the family of compounds behind that catch in the throat.

One tablespoon is all this asks for. You'll taste it.

Creamy Sicilian Olive Oil Lemonade

Serves 2  ·  5 minutes  ·  Vegan, gluten free

Ingredients

• 1 whole lemon, scrubbed clean

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 

• 2 tablespoons raw honey, or maple syrup

• 1 inch fresh ginger, peeled

• 1 generous pinch of fine sea salt

• 2 cups cold filtered water

• Ice, to serve

Instructions

1. Trim the ends off the lemon and cut it into quarters, peel and all. Flick out any seeds you can see, and shave off a strip or two of white pith if the rind is thick.

2. Add the lemon, ginger, honey, salt, olive oil and water to a blender.

3. Blend on high for about forty seconds, until it goes pale and thick with no visible flecks of peel.

4. Pour it through a fine mesh strainer into a jar. Press down on the pulp with the back of a spoon to get the last of the liquid out, then discard what's left.

5. Serve over ice. It keeps in the fridge for two days and it will settle, so shake it before you pour.

Make It Yours

• A dash of cinnamon on top brings the honey forward

• Swap half the water for sparkling after straining if you want it lighter

• More ginger if you like heat, less if you're handing a glass to a seven year old

• Maple syrup instead of honey keeps it vegan and barely changes it

Serving It

Serve it cold, in a tall glass over plenty of ice, ideally before anything else has happened that day. It is good with toast and eggs, better on its own standing at the counter, and it scales up easily if you are sharing it. Double the batch, keep the jug in the fridge, and let everyone pour their own. Give it a shake first, since it settles.

We are going to put a lot of recipes on this site. Some are things you already make on a Tuesday; some are things you make once a year. An olive oil lemon drink is a Tuesday.

It asks for five minutes, a blender, and a bottle worth drinking. Di Marco Olio is hand-picked and cold-pressed on one estate in Cefalà Diana, once a year.