Does anyone else make a simple syrup first? or just add the sugar to the hot brewed tea?
On my trailer or at an event I made LOTS of sweet tea. Only thing was, I was in Connecticut and the name didn't quite catch there then. Most resturants you would ask for sweet tea and they would say yes they have it, bring you regular tea and pull out some sugar packets.
NOT THE SAME THING!!!!
The answer to your question is yes!!!!
I made a TON of simple syrup. TON... it keeps in the fridge well and I used it for my teas and lemonade.
For lemonade, I think somewhere when I used to make the Lemonade BBQ sauce that I used for the Baked Smoked Chops (smothered in the sauce), I started making my lemonade WITH a food processor, whole lemons (peels, pulp, seeds) and sugar which helped break things down. The mess of lemon crap is then strained and food milled and always needed more syrup to make a good lemonade. This would also be the base of my sauce. It is amazing how the taste came from the oils in the peels. This was doubled up with standard country time lemonade though to make it go further and with some added pulp people thought I had made a huge batch of homemade lemonade (10 gallons) when actually I made half of it from scratch.
So about tea. I think the SS is crucial to this but for some reason, like I said, people were buying more cokes and stuff than tea up there. In much the same way changing the name from BBQ Spaghetti and Meatballs to Cosmic Slop and Armadillo Eggs more than Tripled my sales (the recipe never changed), going from sweet tea to Fruit Tea, doubled my tea sales.
My fruit tea was a blend of Luzianne (which I had to have mailed to me) and frozen fruit concentrates, and of course water. SS was added to make it balance. I added one other thing to a 5 gallon supply. Almond Extract!!!! I would have women come just for the tea. Later they started buying my other items like "BBQ Sundaes" (Plastic Vintage Coke glass filled with two inches of brisket or pulled pork, followed by two inches of my Stellas' Sweet and Tangy Baked Beans, and two inches of a choice of Grady Tater Salad - a mix of sweet, red and white potatoes in a hit me fred inspired sauce OR Slaw all topped by a Pickle Spear, "Cup O Pizza" (inspired by the Movie the Jerk) and "Cup of Slop" (Cosmic Slop and an Atgomic Buffalo Turd to top it off) all served in a cup with a fork so they could get their Q on without the intimidation of a big ass meal. 5 bucks... dolla for the tea.
Hold it...wasn't this about the Tea?:blabla::blabla::blabla::blabla::blabla::blabla::blabla: