Bitterlemon – why with salt?

I had a funny conversation with my husband in the first year that we dated. He was preparing for his then-biennial trip back home ( to Houston, Texas) and on his list of things to buy and bring was a bottle of bitterlemon for a friend who had fallen in love with the drink while holidaying here in the Seychelles. I thought it was beyond ridiculous. Surely the great land of America had something similar or even better to offer. Surely.

Actually, it did (and still to my knowledge does) not.

I have since that conversation visited the great United States five times and not once have I come across anything that has been remotely similar to the bitterlemon that the tiny, remote islands of the Seychelles, with its five-digit population number produces. While I’m at it, I’ll also note that I have tasted other beverages produced by leading economies of the world, bearing the same name on their fancier cans, but no, yet again nothing has come close to the bitterlemon I know and grew up with.

I realise that I have not yet answered the question which this post asks. Why with salt? Well, to fully appreciate the answer to that, one must simply try it. I am not sure when I started drinking bitterlemon with salt. Forever seems like a fairly good approximation though I am guessing my sensible parents would have not introduced me to this in my pre-teens. There must have been a glorious day at some point in my life when this discovery was made and well, I have never, ever looked back.