Red Lemonade And The Taste Of Childhood

Ah, the days of red lemonade! This 1970 photo, from Small Lives: Photographs of Irish Childhood 1860-1970, shows some kids guzzling some red lemonade (brand sadly unknown) in a pub. Red lemonade is mysteriously unknown outside Ireland - were you a fan as a kid? Along with Silvermints, Tayto and a batch loaf, red lemonade is one of those foods beloved (or at least well-known) by everyone in the country but not known elsewhere. Maybe this is because no one seems to know exactly what’s in it - it seems pretty unlikely that there are any actual lemons, but it’s hard to know what it actually does taste like.

I must confess that I was never a red lemonade fan - I felt very disappointed whenever relatives produced it as a sort of treat. I was, however, a lover of that other uniquely Irish delicacy, Silvermints, and one summer I consumed so many of them that everything I ate tasted of mint for days. And if Cadbury’s count as Irish - my dad’s aunt worked in the factory in Coolock, so I think they do, a bit – I was a big Dairy Milk fan, and indeed still am. As a kid, when we visited my nana we always hoped her sister-in-law had dropped in a bag of wonky but Snack bars that had come out the wrong shape in the factory but were still absolutely delicious.

So what about you? Were you a fan of the old red lemonade? And what other treats bring back childhood memories?