Summer means time for a drink

Because this is Southern Ontario, and we can go from rainy and miserably cold to sunny and miserably hot in 48 hours, it's all of a sudden time for my awesome and refreshing ginger lemonade. It's so easy it's kind of silly:

Ingredients:
ginger
water
sugar
lemons

Proportions are all approximate, as are cooking times. Feel free to tinker.

I took a 2" piece of ginger and grated it directly into a pot. It was a smallish saucepan, holding 2.5 quarts (or so it says on the bottom). Any stringy bits or chunks that got too small to grate just went straight into the pot too. Don't be picky. I filled the pot about 2/3 - 3/4 with water and let it boil, uncovered, for about half an hour or so. When I got tired of supervising it I turned it down to low, and eventually all the way off, but I let the ginger sit in the hot water for a total of about 1.5 - 2 hours while we had dinner and stuff.

Strain the ginger water into a jar or other good storage container. I did this by putting a coffee filter in a funnel, and then pouring the ginger water through it. It takes for fucking ever though, so you might want to use a tea strainer or something. Put the jar in the fridge for when you want to make ginger lemonade.

To actually make the drink, you basically make regular lemonade, but use the ginger water instead of plain water. For two people I use about 1.5 tsp sugar, the juice of one lemon, and enough ginger water to make up the volume of 1.5 cups. I take two smallish glasses, fill them with ice, and pour the stirred mixture over the ice. If you want to have booze in yours, pour it over the ice before adding the lemonade. Dave had his with a shot of Screech rum, which combination I can't recommend but he seemed to like it. I like mine with a half a shot of Bushmill's.