It's 430 am on Saturday morning... our new lemonades are here!!
With the excitement of the new bottles of lemonade arriving yesterday in Ventura, its like having a new baby - there's pictures to take, people to share it with and the general excitement has taken away my need for sleep. I held the finished bottles for the first time yesterday and appreciated all of the months of work that went into creating these two new flavors with our growing team. They were warm from the pallets sitting in the sun that had been delivered yesterday. The beautiful new Wild Strawberry has lived up to its name. Like a wild child, this flavor had so many challenges, from labels, to ingredients, at every turn it was keeping us on our toes. But seeing it now wrapped in a newly updated label design with the bright red color from the California strawberries, blending with the bright label colors I was in love. As soon as I popped the top the smells from the lemon and strawberries were perfectly sweet. The taste was amazing - sweet, lemony, balanced, perfectly delicious.
Next was the Original Lemonade. So easy was this one - though we did have to change the name at the last minute as another drink had the same name... This is our base recipe, the start of all of the lemonades, truly the original that we started with on the driveway before we added the lavender. It is in the purest form and the label, brilliantly designed by our dedicated designer, Aaryn brought out the essence of the love that we put into our company. As I held the bottle for the first time I admired the brilliant colors on the label that don't come across on the computer. The color was purely lemon and as I popped the top I smelled the fresh, organic lemon juice that we use in our drinks. The fresh warm scent of lemonade transported me back to the moments I created this recipe for our kid's lemonade stand years ago, now in a surreal realm realizing we have served almost a million people our little family recipe... I think of the farmers that don't have to suffer pesticide because we only use organic ingredients. I feel the love that has gone into months of planning for this lemonade. So many people have been asking for a plain lemonade and I resisted for so long. But today, I know it was the right thing to do. This one has now become my husband Tom's favorite.
This morning from the warm little cocoon of Silent Lady has the sounds of the plankton tapping on the bottom of our boat and the sea lions are actively barking again (they never seem to sleep) as they inch closer trying to find places to get out of the water. The rigging drips onto the deck and as I look out the hatch above me it is still pitch black -
Five years in and I can hardly remember what life was like before lemonade - three and a half years living aboard Silent Lady has taught me again how to live in a minimalistic way and appreciate the ordinary things that you have while living in a land house that I took for granted.
It is another new day for our lemonade company and for that I'm grateful...
Lori Volk, Chief Believer
Lori's Original Lemonade
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