Drinks guide
Homemade drinks and smoothies
Most café drinks are three ingredients and a blender. Making them at home costs a fraction and tastes better because you control the sweetness.
Short answer: The easiest homemade drinks are blender-based: Brazilian lemonade, a strawberry banana smoothie, and a chocolate peanut butter shake each take five to ten minutes with no special equipment.
Smoothies that hold their texture
Freeze the fruit, not the liquid. Frozen banana and berries give a thick, spoonable smoothie without ice watering it down, and a spoonful of oats or nut butter keeps you full past mid-morning.
Pitcher drinks for a table full of people
Agua fresca and hibiscus citrus tea both scale to a pitcher, hold in the fridge for two days, and cost almost nothing per glass — the easiest hospitality in the book.
Sweeten last, always
Blend or steep first, taste, then add honey or sugar. Fruit sweetness swings wildly by season, and sweetening last saves nearly every drink from being cloying.
8 recipes for this
Brazilian Lemonade
10 min · 4 glasses
Strawberry Banana Smoothie
5 min · 2
Mango Spinach Green Smoothie
5 min · 2
Chocolate Peanut Butter Shake
5 min · 2
Iced Vanilla Honey Latte
5 min · 1 large glass
Strawberry Basil Agua Fresca
10 min · 6 glasses
Real Hot Cocoa
10 min · 4 mugs
Sparkling Hibiscus Citrus Tea
15 min · 6 glasses
Common questions
- What is Brazilian lemonade?
- A blended limeade made with whole limes and sweetened condensed milk — creamy, tart, and ready in about ten minutes.
- What makes a smoothie thick without ice?
- Frozen banana. It thickens like ice cream without diluting the flavor the way ice does.