Lavender Limeade -- a tasty treat from @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  When I started thinking about a Spice Shop mystery featuring lavender, I knew it would have to include a household favorite, Lavender Limeade. If I remember right, I discovered the original recipe—let’s call it the inspiration recipe, because I’m always changing things—in Country Living Magazine. I’m guessing it was twenty years ago—maybe the summer an old friend of Mr. Right’s visited with his two teenagers. They visited again a few years ago, and one remembered us serving this and asked for the recipe! (She lives in NYC, without a garden, so I gave her a bag of lavender buds, too.)

We love its bright, surprising flavor. Lavender is almost always a surprise in food or drink, because it’s not common, but it is distinctive. And while I have encountered a few people who don’t care for the taste, most enjoy it. Think of it as a bit of the garden in a glass!

It’s refreshing all by itself, or spiked with a bit of vodka or tequila. 

Since lavender is commonly grown, and not so commonly used in cooking, heed this reminder Pepper gives: Make sure your lavender buds are food-safe. If you buy them from a reputable commercial source, no worries. No special variety is needed, but if you grow your own or cut a few stalks from a neighbor’s plant, make sure no pesticides or herbicides were used nearby. Lavender is best harvested with the flowers are about 25%-50% open, in the morning before the oils begin to release in the heat of the day. 

Stir up a batch for the upcoming holiday weekend, and enjoy a little surprise on the tongue! 

Lavender Lies Bleeding comes out July 15 in paperback, ebook, and audio. (Available for preorder now – more details below.)

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing. 

Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Lavender Treats from Pepper’s Pals

Lavender Limeade 

A perennial favorite in Salmon Falls and beyond. 

6 cups water (divided use)

1-3/4 cups white sugar

1/4 cup dried lavender 

1 teaspoon grated lime zest

1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

lime slices (optional garnish)

lavender flowers (optional garnish)

Make the simple syrup: In a 2-quart saucepan, combine 2 cups water, sugar, dried lavender, and lime zest. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove pan from heat and let syrup stand 10 minutes. Strain the liquid and discard the lavender.

Make the limeade: In a large pitcher, stir together the remaining 4 cups of water, the lavender syrup, and the lime juice. Serve over ice, adding lime slices or lavender flowers for garnish, if you’d like. 

Makes about six cups.

For a cocktail: (Not shown.) Place ice in a rocks glass. Pour in a jigger of tequila or vodka, and add lavender limeade. Top with a slice of lime. 

Enjoy!

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .  

Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills. 

Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket. 

Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf. 

As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

A finalist for the 2025 High Plains International Book Award!

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.