Drinks to Cool You Down as the World Warms: NPR

Limonana, also called Egyptian mint lemonade

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The news? It’s hot. In my area (Los Angeles), we’ve been under heat warnings for weeks, with temperatures reaching triple digits in some neighborhoods. And Southern California is no exception: All across the country (and the world), record-breaking heat is hitting people, sometimes with extreme consequences.

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And with all the bad weather news that’s been circulating in recent weeks, I thought it would be helpful to write a post about something that might help cool things down a bit, both literally and figuratively. So here it is: For months, I’ve been researching the drinks that people in hot countries use to cool down. And while there are too many to include in this newsletter (after all, it’s a big world and a lot of it is pretty warm), I’m going to share with you five of my favorites that have gotten me through the hottest days in my apartment without air conditioning.

• Limonana, also called Egyptian mint lemonade 🍋 I rarely see a lemonade I don’t want to buy, but this one is next level. The recipe I used, from two Egyptian-American sisters, is simple, luxurious, and easy to make vegan (by swapping out the full-fat coconut milk for coconut milk). If you’re a fan of caipirinhas or mojitos, this drink is their tart, bittersweet, work-friendly cousin.
• Salvadoran Salad Mural 🍍Part drink, part fruit salad, this Salvadoran punch full of pineapple, Pink Ladies, marañon, and more proves that you can have your drink and eat it, too. I used the recipe from Karla Tatiana Vasquez’s new cookbook Salvisoul (with a few substitutions—not everything is easy to get right), but Mrs. Mango’s is pretty good, too. (And the video is easy to follow even if you don’t speak Spanish.)
• Mango Lassi 🥭 Am I going to lie and tell you I made a mango lassi in my crappy blender that can barely turn ice cream into a milkshake? No, I didn’t. to have I went around the block and bought a case of it at one of my favorite restaurants. But if I were to try these recipes, I would probably start with this recipe from Tea for Turmeric (by a Pakistani-American food blogger whose recipes rarely fail).
• Mint flavored tea 🍵 Naysayers will say that a hot beverage doesn’t belong on this list. To those people, I say: I believe in science. Seriously, people in some of the hottest regions of the world have been drinking hot tea to cool down for millennia. And while the type of tea varies from culture to culture, mint tea, Morocco’s national drink, has been my saving grace this summer.
• Red drink 🍉 There are versions of this brew (with different names) everywhere from Dakar to Bridgetown to Galveston. And while the Red Drink is often associated with Juneteenth, it’s versatile and refreshing enough to drink all season long. I’m a Rooibos fanatic, so the version I turn to again and again is this one from Bryant Terry’s Afro-Vegan Cookbook . But the possibilities for this drink are endless, and the recipes are everywhere.

Remember: Prevention is better than cure. Or as I like to say, about 3 liters of water is better than heatstroke. So drink up, my friends. And keep following our coverage: On NPR, we will continue to follow this extreme heat, its disproportionate effects on communities of color, and the toll it has taken on people’s ability to live, thrive, worship, and work.

In the meantime, try to stay cool by any means possible. And in the immortal words of my colleague BA Parker: HYDRATE.

This story was written by Leah Donnella and edited by Courtney Stein.