Fairs are fun.

I mean, where else can you ride the ferris wheel, eat pupusas and watch the birth of a calf (from ten feet away)? Nowhere. Fairs are cool.

But on a day when the temperatures blasted into the mid-90s, bringing waves of thunderstorms along for the ride, I wanted something more.

I wanted limeade.

Every food stand (including the one where my wife scored some sweet pork pupusas) has an oil drum of sugar water, baskets of lemons and one of those lever-action lemon squeezers. I think Montgomery County would fine any vendor who attempted to pass off Country Time for the real thing.

But there was no limeade to be found. And I was bummed.

I like limes better than lemons. They aren't quite as tart, and they have much more taste. My favorite food is Thai food, and Thais use limes the way Native Americans used buffalo: every little bit. The juice goes into sauces, as does scraped rind. Even the leaves of the lime tree are sometimes used. The result is some seriously tasty (and, yes, often mind-bogglingly spicy) food.

I like limes. And when I'm hot and sweaty with plenty of dusty hiking left on the schedule, nothing works like limeade, preferably with as little sugar as possible.

My beverage of choice is beer. But during the summer, I routinely drink more than a gallon's worth of fluids every day. Some of that is water, about half of it is (unsweetened) iced tea, and there's usually a Diet Coke or Diet Mountain Dew in the mix. And, of course, beer.

You'll notice that there's not much sugar in any of that. With good reason. I don't like sugar. I can take candy in small doses, but I rarely eat cake or cookies. Ice cream is fine, but only if it's a full-fat kinda recipe. Gotta balance the sweetness with some grease.

I also keep a little Fresca in the house. Not Diet Sprite or Diet 7Up. Those things are too lemony, and thus, almost devoid of taste. Fresca has a grapefruit flavor, which is tangier. I'm also partial to those tamarind sodas you can find in Hispanic markets, but I don't get those very often since they're full of sugar. Sometimes my aversions and predilections collide. Oh well.

After we got home from the fair on Friday, we toweled off (the third wave of thunderstorms caught us in the parking lot), fed the boys and put them to bed. And then I remembered that my wife bought a bunch of limes last week.

So I pulled a Fresca and a lime from the fridge. I cut the lime in half and squeezed out each piece into the glass. No worry about seeds, because most limes are virtually seedless. Then I popped in a couple ice cubes and poured the Fresca. Instant lime fizz--and no sugar, to boot. Sweet!

It was great. I'm a great proponent of wheat beer as an outstanding refresher (the yeast floating in unfiltered wheat beer is full of vitamin B12), but this was way better. I could've drained it in a single draught, but I thought my wife out to try it first.

She doesn't like Fresca or any kind of diet soda. She's a full-throttle Coke drinker. So she was skeptical. She carefully lifted the glass to her lips and gingerly took a sip.

Then another.

"Wow. That's actually refreshing."

It was like that old "Mikey likes it" commercial. She actually endorsed something containing Fresca! Wow. It must really be good.

Yeah, it was. And now I know what I'll be stocking up on next summer.

A case or two of Fresca. And enough limes to turn my liver green.

Jon Worley has liked Fresca ever since sneaking some from his grandparents's back porch thirty-five years ago.