How to Make Flavored Water + Recipes for Different Water Flavors
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During the summertime, it’s very important to stay hydrated, especially for afternoon cooking on the grill or at pool parties. Especially in the high altitudes in Colorado, I’ve been trying to drink more water myself, and help my family drink more water. To make the water in our household a little bit more interesting and healthy, I’ve tried my hand at making infused water.
I’ve found that the best way to do this was having a glass drink dispenser out in the open with the infused water, so everyone can fill up their cups or water bottles plenty of times. Making infused water is very easy, as all you have to do is fill a container with sliced fruits, vegetables, herbs, or spices, plenty of ice, and then fill it with water. Putting ice on top of the fruits and such is important as it prevents them from floating to the top, and gives a chance for the water to be infused. After picking out whatever you want in your water, the water stays cold for the entire day, and the water is good for a little under 24 hours. If left out for too long, the water can become over-infused and will taste too bitter or have an odd color. If you don’t want to waste your water before it becomes over-infused, it’s easy to just throw away the fruit and keep the infused water in the fridge to keep it cool.
The process to make infused water is quite simple and leaves much to the creativity of yourself: Add your ingredients that you want to be infused. Add plenty of ice on top of the ingredients. Fill your container with water.
When preparing the ingredients for infused water, it’s important to point out that infusion ingredients should be capped at around three, since if there are too many ingredients, the water will become muddled with so many flavors and won’t taste or look good. Also, when cutting any ingredients that you’re going to be using, fruits and vegetables shouldn’t be sliced too thinly, as they will become too mushy, and fall apart in the water and create pulp.
One of my favorite ingredient combinations is with 2 lemons and lots of fresh mints, which is a very simple and tasty combination. Note that this is the amount of fruit that I add to my own glass drink dispenser, which holds around 2 gallons- you might need to have less or more fruit to your own dispenser, depending on how big it is. And ingredients don’t have to be restricted to just fruits- for example, during the winter, I like to use sliced apples, cinnamon, and anise seeds. You could also do vegetables such as cucumbers or carrots, which opens up a lot of different flavor combinations. Here are some different combinations for making infused water:
For The Summer:
Lemon + Mint
Strawberry + Lemon
Strawberry + Blueberry
For The Winter:
Apple + Cinnamon + Anise
Pear + Apple
Strawberry Recipes
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Making Infused Water
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Keep strawberries fresh in the refrigerator
How to keep strawberries fresh with vinegar
Valentine’s Day Charcuterie Board
Shooting infused water is always nice and simple, and it’s always a treat to work with fresh fruits and vegetables, especially when I can shoot outside in the summer. To complete the shoot, I always like to add additional garnishes to a cup of infused water, specifically the fruits that the water is infused with.
Infused water
Equipment
Ingredients
- 5 Cups Water
- 2 Cups Ice
- Fresh mint
- 8 Fresh strawberries
- 4 Fresh kiwi
Instructions
- Cut fresh fruits and add the ingredients that you would like to infuse your water in a container, making sure to not cut them too thin.
- Add ice on top of your ingredients.
- Add water to the container.
Food photography props used in this photoshoot
Some of the props might no longer be available in stores. I selected props as close as possible to match those items.
A complete list of my photography equipment
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