Aguas Frescas

Aguas Frescas

Ades, punches, fruit drinks and other non-alcoholic flavored coolers, known as aguas frescas (Spanish: fresh waters) in some parts of Latin America, are a combination of either fruits, cereals, or seeds with sugar and water, blended to make a beverage. Aguas frescas are popular in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the United States. Some of the more popular flavors include tamarind drink (made with tamarind pods), agua de Flor de Jamaica (made with Hibiscus), and agua de horchata (usually made with rice and cinnamon).

In Mexico, the beverage is often sold by street vendors, but in many cases, fine Mexican restaurants will have a good selection of aguas frescas available.

There is some confusion in terms internationally between the drinks referred to here and bottled soft drinks. In Guatemala and Nicaragua, these are referred to as frescos, short for refresco, which in Mexico means soft drinks. Soft drinks in Guatemala are called aguas, short for aguas gaseosas, but easily confused with the Mexican aguas frescas.

Another type of agua fresca, popular on Caribbean islands like the Dominican Republic, is made with oatmeal and a citrus juice.

It may be made with other ingredients, mainly with liquefied fruits.

In Mexico and Central America, it is common to find aguas frescas in these flavors:

• Sweet fruits
  • Cantaloupe
  • Guava
  • Mammee apple
  • Mango
  • Melon
  • Marañón, using pulp of the cashew apple
  • Papaya
  • Passion fruit
  • Soursop
  • Tuna, the Mexican prickly pear
  • Watermelon
• Sour fruits:
  • Cucumber
  • Lemon (squeezing with a juicer)
  • Lime
  • Orange (squeezing with a juicer)
  • Pineapple
  • Tamarind
  • Strawberry
• With seeds or flowers
  • Chía, often blended with vegetables
  • Hibiscus tea, also called Jamaica or sorrel, a sometimes sugared cold drink made from the flowers of the hibiscus plant, popular also in Jamaica and West Africa
  • Horchata, which is made with walnuts, barley, or chufa (the root of Cyperus esculentus), and in Mexico is made often of rice, rarely of oats, and scented with vanilla
  • Alfalfa, blending fresh alfalfa leaves with water
  • Cebada, using the grains of barley