Hard Lemonade

[tygo]

Anytime someone asks about hard lemonade I recall a previous thread on this topic here:

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=2885.msg32768#msg32768

Which contains a memorable description of the process used commercially to make hard lemonade:

@thomasbarnes

Technically, foul swill like Mike’s IS a “malt beverage,” but that like saying that dollar store dog food is roast rack of spring lamb. The exact processes involved are secret, propriety and obscene. They are said to involve producing a high-gravity highly fermentable wort from malt and the blood of innocents, fermenting it with a highly-attenuative yeast strain drooled from the lips of hellhounds, and then filtering the result through a 0.2 micron filter while standing naked within a pentagram made of black candles and chanting in the Black Tongue. The resulting liquid is then treated with lemon-like flavor mixtures believed to include the tears of tortured children and colorants rumored to be derived from the souls of 17 Hell-sworn SAB-Miller executives.

I might have gotten some of the details wrong, but it’s definitely not something a sane and God-fearing homebrewer would want to get involved in. In my opinion.