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A glass of pink lemonade is centered within a colorful patterned frame. Inside the glass, a clown hangs on a straw and dips a pair of red tights into a bucket. On another ice cube, a horse and circus performers lounge. 

Alice Des

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and children of all ages, prepare yourself for one of the greatest beverage recipe stories ever told! There’s desperation and duplicitousness, ingenuity and impudicity, and at the very end an ice-cold glass of that cool, crisp carnival concoction — that sugary sweet circus sipper … pink lemonade!

Our story begins as most good stories do: with a disgruntled clown quitting the circus after a contentious salary dispute. The year is 1857; the place, the scorching, sparsely populated plains of Texas.

Here's a modern recipe for Pink Lemonade, with fresh juice and grenadine.

Realizing that clown wages were, in fact, for clowns, Pete Conklin demanded the <a href="https://www.elephant.se/location2.php?location_id=1240" target=_blank>Mabie Brothers’ United States Olympic Circus</a> (the finest circus of the time) pay him for his considerable talents. Why, not every clown can hold his own against acts like <a href="https://www.traverseticker.com/news/150-years-ago-the-supremely-magnificent-circus-hit-front-street/" target=_blank>a content elephant that turns in circles, or a goat that rides on horseback like a man</a>, yet Conklin brought the house down nightly with his acrobatic feats and lively renditions of execrably racist songs.

Back in the olden times, locals were wont to assemble violent mobs with the express purpose of fighting circus folk, because there was no TV or internet and they needed something to do. A good clown kept the crowds smiling, and kept the peace. Without Conklin, the show would no doubt quickly descend into chaos.

The Mabie brothers promptly ejected Conklin from the big top, wishing him the best of luck in his new home of middle-of-nowhere Texas, and waited patiently for the prodigal clown to return. Perhaps if he was just another run-of-the-mill ne’er-do-well clown, he would have resigned in defeat and come crawling back for booze money. But Conklin was no such clown! He was a savvy gent who had squirreled away about $40 in his piggy bank (about $1,400 today), and was ready to bet on himself.

Who invented the hamburger? Biting into the messy history of America’s iconic sandwich.

Ready to show the Mabie brothers what constructive clown rage looks like, Conklin bought an old covered wagon, a few mules, a bag of sugar, a jar of tartaric acid and one single, solitary lemon. He mixed up the sugar with water in a big glass jar, stirred in a few big spoonfuls of acid, dropped the lemon in for garnish, and started selling lemonade.

“That lemon was the best example of a friend I ever met,” <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=RBN18980408.2.95&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------" target=_blank>Conklin wistfully recalled many years later</a>. “It stayed with me to the end.”

Conklin, his mules, and his good luck lemon followed the circus from Podunk town to Podunk town, cooling down the rowdy crowds with tall, tart glasses of acid-spiked sugar water, and lifting their spirits with a catchy jingle:

“Here’s your ice cold lemonade

It’ll give you joy for half an hour!”

And then, one fateful day … tragedy struck. For the day was as hot as any other, the sweaty scrum was atwitter, and the well had run dry. Conklin scoured the circus for water, but it had been used up — the elephants had been fed, the goat had been bathed, and all hope seemed lost.

Casting impropriety to the wind he barged into the changing tent of Fannie Jamieson — the queen of mid-19th century bareback equestrian — who had peeled off her bright red tights and was scrubbing off the horse-scent in a bucket of water.

Conklin whisked away the washtub, its contents colored by the tights’ aniline dye. He poured it into his jug full of sugar and acid, plopped in his lucky lemon and got to barking, telling the thirsty throng to get out their nickels.

The newly christened “strawberry” lemonade sold twice as quickly as Conklin’s boring old lemonade, which didn’t contain any ladies’ tights and therefore was much less exciting. The next day, aniline dye became a permanent addition to the recipe. Though highly toxic, Conklin figured a few drops wouldn’t hurt anyone, and besides, even if it did, who would suspect the pink lemonade of befalling them?

How 4 iconic American dishes evolved from foreign roots

Soon enough, pink lemonade became the drink for any self-respecting circus to serve, and nearly two centuries later, it’s still refreshing the masses on the midway, the boardwalk, and under the big top. Today, the flavor is much more likely to come from citric acid rather than tartaric, and the vibrant pink hue from nontoxic red dye 40.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the entirely true story of the creation of pink lemonade. How can we be so sure? Conklin made sure his spectacular feat of ingenious entrepreneurship was fully on the record, with the Red Bluff News of the Old West putting it to print in 1898. Twenty-three years later, his brother — the legendary lion tamer George Conklin — confirmed the story in his memoir, “<a href="https://archive.org/details/TheWaysOfTheCircus" target=_blank>The Ways of the Circus</a>,” along with thrilling big-top tales of danger, excitement and clowns gone wild. And if there’s one thing you can confidently say about circus folk, it’s that you can always, always, trust them to tell the truth.

Scott Suchman for The Washington Post

If this story has whet your appetite for a glass of the stuff, try this modern version made with water, sugar, lots of fresh lemon juice and a splash of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/homemade-grenadine/" target=_blank>grenadine syrup</a>.

Get the recipe: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/pink-lemonade/" target=_blank>Pink Lemonade</a>

Allison Robicelli

washpost

Pink lemonade’s origin story begins with a disgruntled circus clown

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For The Washington Post

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Pink lemonade’s origin story begins with a disgruntled clown

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