When Life Gives You Lemons

Not to be squeezed out by his ‘Pickle Pioneer’ older brother, Logan Barash and a friend participated in the West Hartford Pop-Up Market, selling a delicious lemonade, Main Squeeze. This is Barash’s second foray into entrepreneurship. He sold chocolate-covered Oreos and pretzels at the last Pop Up Market held two years ago.

Barash and his fellow vendor brainstormed various foodstuffs to produce an item that didn’t require as much work as the chocolate-covered business.”The lemonade was easier to make than the pretzels, but it was still dirty and sticky,” Brash said.

The two fiddled with recipes to tickle consumers’ palettes and discovered a winning combination. “When we first brainstormed and had the idea of lemonade, we wondered what we could do to make it fancy and special. Then we chose blueberry and strawberry purees to add to the mix.” Their recipe also includes a dash of cran-raspberry and grape juices.

The duo went through six “huge” bags of Costco lemons that were hand-squeezed over the course of several hours to develop their concoction, as well as plenty of sugar. They sold their item in 16 oz. lidded plastic cups for $4.00; a $5.00 version included a ‘candy boost’ from Twizzler and gummy sharks. Main Squeeze made a healthy profit on their venture, selling approximately 80 cups and using about $100 in ingredients.

Both self-described extroverts found the selling aspect of their job easy as they like engaging with the customers and serving up their orders.” It was really fun, and I would do it again,” he said.  “The profits were pretty good, too.”