I have always thought that aguas frescas were born out of resourcefulness. If you only have one melon to juice but there are ten people coming over for lunch, how do you make it yield more? By turning it into an agua fresca. It is a wonderful fresh tradition shared by the entire country. It is the perfect drink to have when a fruit juice would be too much and plain water too boring. It has three basic ingredients: water, fruit, and sugar. The method is basically the same for all aguas. You can play with different fruit, herb, and spice combinations and by adjusting the sweetness levels to your taste and the ratio of water to fruit. For example, we like ours a bit more watery and I barely add any sugar.

Ingredients

　　Juice of 3 grapefruits

　　2 cups (430 g) guava puree (preferably from fresh guavas)

　　Leaves from 1 sprig fresh rosemary

　　½ cup (100 g) sugar, or to taste

　　In a blender, combine all the ingredients, except the sugar, and blend well. Standard blender jars probably won’t fit all the ingredients so blend in batches. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a pitcher. Add sugar (or your preferred sweetener) to taste, adjusting for your own preference and based on how sweet the fruit is to begin with. Add enough ice to your liking. As an option, you can garnish with a piece of an ingredient in the agua. For example, a sprig of rosemary, a stick of cinnamon, or slices of lemon. Pour into ice-filled glasses.

　　Reprinted with permission from Tu Casa Mi Casa: Mexican Recipes for the Home Cook by Enrique Olvera, Peter Meehan, Daniela Soto-Innes, onzalo Goût, and Luis Arellano copyright © 2019. Published by Phaidon Press.Buy the full book from Amazon.