Lemonade: fizzy apples

A “new” apple

Mads and I popped into the supermarket to grab a few things when these funny shaped apples caught my eye.   They were elongated pale green apples with faint yellow-red patches.  A little bit like Golden Delicious but more green than yellow.  The shape was long kind of a like Red Delicious but without the ribs.  Inspection of the fruit sticker identified these as Lemonade – a variety I had not heard of.  And so we picked through the bin and chose four pristine specimens to try.

A quick google of the world wide web and Yummy website identified these apples as a new cultivar.  But not so new as I thought – they were available this time last year according to the Foodlovers Forum, while The Yummy Fruit Co reckon this is the third season. 

Anyhow, it was our first taste of the new apple. 

Tasting Notes

I had read other’s thoughts on the apple:

Trevor: a bit tart
Raywyne: tasteless
Mary: Crisp and not too sweet.  Lovely
Yummy Fruit Co Tasting Notes: a refreshing fizzy flavour, slightly tart but very crisp firm flesh.

So I was interested to try the apple and see what I thought.  We ate them chilled and at room temperature.

First thoughts: the chilled apple was a juicy, thirst quenching apple, crisp & crunchy with subtle flavour.  Closing my eyes I thought I could imagine I was eating crunchy lemonade without the bubbles.  I didn’t really get the fizz, it was more kind flat fizzy like the stuff Grandma kept for when we had bellyaches.  

The flavour wasn’t lemon, but lemonade doesn’t taste like lemon either.  The Anster thought the apple had subtropical flavours – a hint of loquat which tastes like a combination of pineapple and rock melon.  I prefer tart apples – Braeburn being one of my favourite eating apples – so I didn’t find Lemonade overly tart.

Eating the same apple (well, another apple but still a lemonade apple) at room temperature yielded different results.  The tartness was more apparent and the flavour shone through.  So eat the apples chilled if you are after a juicy apple but if you prefer to taste all the subtropical nuances then try it at room temperature or sun-warmed, as if picked off the tree on a sunny day.

These apples are an eating apple, but they bake well too.  I baked one apple, sliced with a simple sugar syrup and the juice of half a lemon.  The apples held their shape and the raw flavour magnified by the cooking.

Would I buy them again – yes!

In my googling of the apple, I discovered that the New Zealand Lemonade is not the first apple to be named Lemonade.  In New Berlin, Wisconsin there is a heirloom apple orchard which grows (amongst others) two varieties only known to this particular orchard: the Old Church apple and the Lemonade apple.  Oh to apple my way around the world …….