Cold Drink

Whenever I use canteloupe to make paletas de melón or agua de melón, I like to save the seeds to make this drink. It’s quite tasty, and something about it makes me feel energetic.

This tasty and refreshing drink is made with dried hibiscus flowers, also known as roselle or Jamaican sorrel. Essentially, it’s an herbal iced tea, but perhaps the most beautiful one you’ve ever had, with a brilliant magenta color extracted from the flowers. I like to soak the flowers overnight, as is traditional in my family, because I feel this extracts more of the subtle, tart, berrylike flavor. Once you’re done, instead of discarding the hibiscus flowers, save them to snack on. They’ll be a little sweet, and I think they’re delicious. Just be sure to keep them refrigerated.

This is the kind of drink that made me feel like a grown-up when I was little. It feels like a cocktail, but there’s no alcohol (though you could certainly add some vodka or rum). You can make it with precut canned pineapple, but it’s so much tastier if you get a fresh, whole pineapple and use that.

This is essentially a fresh orange cooler with a little sparkling water, so it’s kind of like a natural soda. It isn’t as bubbly, but it is quite refreshing and flavorful.

This cool, refreshing drink tastes wonderful, and can also help combat nausea.

Ginger is one of your best friends during chemo, both for its flavor, which can spark even the most jaded taste buds, and for its tummy-soothing properties. A lot of people think store-bought ginger ale will do the trick, but the actual ginger content in most commerical varieties is minimal. Plus, you often get a whole host of other garbage (can you say high fructose corn syrup?) that you’d be better off without. Enter this recipe, which uses straight-up ginger syrup so you can control the amount of zing in your tonic. The frozen grapes serve the same purpose as your basic ice cubes, but also sneak a bunch of healthy minerals and phytochemicals into the brew.

This tea is a little like a mother’s gentle belly rub for a sick child, as both peppermint and ginger have qualities that relax the smooth muscles that surround the intestine.

Green tea is great for you—and many of its compounds are being studied for their anticancer benefits, but it can be astringent and bitter. Here I’ve added ginger and lemon with either honey or agave to really knock out the bitterness. The result is a refreshing lemonade that’s far healthier than the average store-bought blend. If you really want to amp up the sweetness, squeeze in a few oranges as well.

My mentor, Annemarie Colbin, is both a pioneer in the field of nutrition and healing and an extremely generous woman. The founder of the cooking school I attended, the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, Annemarie has a PhD in nutrition and is the author of Food and Healing, considered a bible among chefs who believe in using food to support health. She’s graciously allowed me to use this recipe from that book; it’s a stress-relieving elixir that’s a calmative in a cup. The only thing I’ve done is add a little ginger and cinnamon. For those days when you need a hug pronto and there’s no one around to soothe your nerves, this kudzu concoction will do the trick.

My granny always made this punch. She practically raised me; we lived with her until my daddy bought us a house and moved us out when I was still a little boy. My grandmother was a hardworking Southern woman, always cooking and cleaning her house. This is her recipe for as refreshing and fragrant a summer drink as you can imagine—a really intensely flavored version of sweet tea, if you will. It’s a family favorite to this day. (It doesn’t call for Crown Royal, and I don’t even mind.) One thing, though: My granny’s last name wasn’t Jenkins, and she never did tell me who this recipe is originally named after; that’s a mystery for the ages, I guess.

If I’m working, which is to say I’m not drinking anything strong because I’m focused on winning a competition, I don’t drink anything besides sweet tea. I love sweet tea, truly. It’s the drink of the South, the drink of my home. Here’s how we do it.

Serve this immediately; it is not a beverage that can sit around.

In the South, we mean it when we offer you a tall glass of sweet tea—it is sweet! This is the real thing, infused with help from the hot sun and sweet enough to put a smile on anyone’s face. Make sure to add the sugar right after you bring the warm tea in from the sun so it’ll dissolve completely. Once the sweet tea is mixed, keep it refrigerated and discard it if it appears at all cloudy.

We had lemon trees and mint all over our ranch when I was a kid. I don’t remember when I tasted the two together for the first time, but since then I’ve never liked lemonade any other way. For kids or anyone not drinking alcohol, it’s a fabulously festive and beautiful nonalcoholic treat. Or add a shot of rum or vodka to each glass and make a cocktail out of it!

The limes we grew in Texas are almost a hybrid lemon-lime and we used them to make “ades.” It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized other people usually used lemons, not limes. This is the recipe I grew up with, and it works just as perfectly with the limes you can buy at the store as it did with the limes we grew.

This drink transforms a standard Champagne cocktail into something a bit more zesty and floral. Bright orange in color, Aperol is a light aperitif with a unique bittersweet taste that blends beautifully with fruit and bubbly. Making watermelon juice is a snap; simply pop a wedge of seedless watermelon (without rind) into a blender, turn it on for two seconds, turn it off, and you’re done.

This effervescent soda is a homemade variation of the popular soft drink. Fresh and bright, it’s the perfect post-yoga refresher. Put a little pizzazz in your day and try this wonderful fruity elixir.

This combo was born out of the remake of a classic cocktail, the Hurricane. Passion fruit adds a tropical flavor and I just love the crunch of the seeds. The result is a tantalizing and refreshing mix using one of South Florida’s most delicious fruits.

This is a good idea for an abundance of tomatoes that are threatening to rot. The juice keeps refrigerated for several days and can be frozen for up to 6 months.