With summer just around the corner, now is a great time to put away that peppermint extract for a while and break out the pure lemon extract in its place. It's produced by Nielsen-Massey as well, and it's a great way to add a burst of lemony flavor to all sorts of stuff.

You can use it for baking lemon cookies and cakes (topped with lemon frosting or whipped cream for good measure), concocting tangy marinades and salad dressings, adding a refreshingly tangy punch to yogurt or tea, serving up summery mojitos and other cocktails to your party guests, or any number of other ideas you can dream up. ?

It's a heckuva lot easier than zesting/peeling/juicing lemons by hand in any case, and there are only three simple ingredients in it — natural oil of lemon, pure cane alcohol, and water — so you don't have to worry about strange chemical flavors or preservatives.

You can buy this lemon extract in a few different bottle sizes:

• 2 fl oz ($11)
• 4 fl oz ($14)
• 18 fl oz ($28)