Summer citrus cordial - and what a summer we are going to have!

Wow!  We have just had the weekend from hell with 40+C weather and hot northerlies blowing at us.  I can imagine what all the G20 leaders said when they got home about stinking hot Brisbane.  Never mind that this is really really odd for Spring.  Gawd knows what is ahead in the coming Summer months.
We had a friend coming over for dinner on the Saturday night, so I made citrus cordial.  We sat in the air-con and drank cordial, and then Champagne 'cos that's what you need to do when the weather is unbearable.  Oh, and just to keep us on our toes, we had a huge storm yesterday and flash flooding.  Eek!
This is a really easy recipe, and only takes a short time to make.  And it's so handy to have a jugfull (is that a real word?) in the fridge ready to go.  You will get 2 jugs' worth out of this recipe.

ingredients:

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 cinnamon stick
zest of a lime or a lemon
2 cups of fresh citrus juice- this can be a mixture of oranges, lemons and limes
1 bottle of soda or mineral water
extra citrus zest for serving

Method:

Place the water and sugar into a medium saucepan
Stir and keep stirring till the sugar has dissolved over a medium heat
Add the cinnamon stick and zest now to the pan
Stop stirring! and let it simmer away gently on a low heat for 6 minutes
Take it off the heat
Leave to cool down
Take out the cinnamon stick when ready to mix the syrup with the juice

Juice your fruit - I used 2 big oranges, a lime and several lemons to get 2 cups
Add the juice and sugar syrup together and stir
Pour half the mixture into a nice jug
Add the bottle of sparkling water
Throw on the extra zest and ice cubes - and drink!

making sugar syrup

gnarly organic lemons from a friend's tree

zesting and juicing

combining cordial and mineral water 

sparkling and so refreshing!