When I was a kid, there was always a bottle somewhere in the fridge, bright green, most of the time. You didn’t need much, just a splash into a glass of water, a quick stir, and that was it: the water changed color, the smell came up immediately, and suddenly it felt like something way more luxurious and delicious.
Mint, usually. Sweet, but with that slightly sharp edge if you got the proportions wrong. Some people – me included – put it in milk too: odd perhaps, but a quintessential flavor of my generation’s childhood. Adding a splash of mint syrup to your summer drink was a simple thing, one of those gestures you did almost automatically: you didn’t think about it, you just did it.
