Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Burning Up

Happy belated Canada day, and Fourth of July weekend everyone. Hopefully everyone was able to stay relatively cool, considering both sides of North America were borderline cooked.

Taking inspiration from that, I went looking for something that would be hydrating, as well as boozy. Luckily, I had some mint that needed using, along with a can of pineapple juice, so I figured why not combine and add gin. How could this possibly be bad?

2 oz. Gin

1 oz. Pineapple juice

3 mint

3(ish) cubes of sliced watermelon

Add the mint and watermelon to a cocktail shaker and muddle. Add the gin, pineapple juice, and ice. Shake and fine strain into a chilled rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with another mint leaf.

The nose has a very pleasant watermelon aroma, with a hint of mint from the garnish. No strong alcohol notes either.

Despite the lack of gin smell, the gin is the first flavor that really comes through here. It’s strong, but not oppressively so. After a few seconds, the watermelon starts to come through. The watermelon plays really well here. It adds lightness (thanks to the fact that watermelon is 92% water) as well as a lot of flavor. The pineapple juice comes in about midway through the sip. The two fruit juices mix very well with the overall flavor profile. The mint however does get lost. I used about 3 leaves of fresh mint plus the garnish, so I would most definitely add more  the next time I make this.

Another post mixing modification I did was add an unmeasured splash of soda water topper to the glass. While it was quite delicious without, I think the carbonation really brightens it up. It also has the added benefit of softening the alcohol feel, which means you can drink way more of these than you probably should, which makes it dangerously delicious, and perfect for these record setting heat days