Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: A Taste of Summer

Although it felt like it recently, summer and warm weather aren’t here yet (at least in the Northeast). Despite that fact, we were recently at a mothers day cookout and we ended up leaving with half a watermelon courtesy of the hosts who had way too much and were looking to offload some. In the interest of not wasting this lovely parting gift, I decided to incorporate it into some sort of off the books, home made concoction. I decided on gin to use as the base, because I thought the flavors would work, and it was a bit different than other watermelon drinks I’ve seen. Which mostly utilize vodka or tequila. Here’s what I came up with:

1 slice watermelon

2 oz. Gordons London dry gin

.5 oz. lime juice

2 sprigs thyme

Soda water

Sea Salt

Muddle thyme and watermelon in a cocktail shaker. Add gin, lime juice ice and shake until cold. Fine strain into a rocks glass with 1 giant ice cube. Top with the soda water, a thyme sprig and lime slice for garnish. 

There is a decent amount of fresh watermelon nose. I get some hints of lime and thyme thrown in there as well. It definitely reminds me of summer.

This starts out nice and refreshing with the watermelon, but quickly gets overtaken by the gin. It doesn’t mask it completely, but it does step on it, in a way that does negatively impact the overall drink. Perhaps 2 ounces of gin was a bit too much. Next time I think I’ll go with one and a half ounces and see what that does. The sea salt is a nice touch, but I think instead of salting the top of the drink itself, I’ll half ass a salted rim. Seriously, I suck at rimming glasses. If anyone has any advice on successfully rimming glasses, please let me know.

Anyway, the lime juice is an excellent addition here. The citrus sour flavor acts as a nice balancer to the other flavors going on. the thyme gets kind of lost in all the other flavors. Truth be told, I wouldn’t necessarily use thyme in this. I added it here as a “because I have it and why the hell not?” type of decision. If I had some on hand, I would absolutely use mint here. Watermelon and mint are already a good combination, and  would play well together here as well. I’m currently growing some, Fingers crossed I’ll have some for summer drinks in a little while.

This is good, but there is room for improvement. First of all, you absolutely need to fine strain this. I made Mrs. Sharkbait a virgin version of this that I just built in the glass. The muddler did OK, but it was still a little chunky. So next time muddle and fine strain, or even better, use a stick blender in a cocktail shaker. Also, I would use more watermelon. It is the centerpiece of this drink, and I think there should be more in there than what I went with. After that, reduce the gin as I mentioned before. Keep the salt, add a bit more lime, and swap the thyme for mint. In a pinch, and for something different, it works. I’ll definitely be giving this another go, when watermelons are more in season.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)