Sharkbaits Cocktail of the Week: Ginning Up Something

Hey there and happy Friday! It’s after Memorial day down here and summer is ramping up, despite a 30ish degree temperature difference between today and tomorrow.

With hot days  (supposedly) here now, I’m always looking out for cool, and refreshing drinks. This week, having a bunch of leftover watermelon, I wanted to get creative and make my own drink. I already attempted this once before, so I used that attempt as a baseline for measurements, but also adjusted to what I had on hand. This is what I came up with:

2 slices watermelon
2.5 oz. Gordons London dry gin
.5 oz. lime juice
.5 oz orgeat

Muddle and/or blend the watermelon, add gin lime and orgeat. Shake with ice and double strain* into a double rocks glass

*The double strain is essential because muddling/blending the watermelon will leave a puree which you might want to strain out to make the drink easier to consume. I had to use my barspoon to help the second strain get the most liquid through into the glass

There are faint traces of watermelon aroma comes off the glass when you bring it in to take a sip. It’s pleasant, but I don’t know if you’d notice it if you weren’t going out of your way to look for it.

Now this is a pretty good attempt at a drink here. It’s very light, and almost instantly refreshing. The lightness of the watermelon is what gets me first. It’s light flavors lead the way, surprisingly overtaking the 2 and a half ounces of gin used as the base spirit. Which is quite impressive as I used my normal London Dry, as opposed to a Plymouth or a Hendricks, which isn’t as strong in the juniper department. Speaking of Hendricks, I think the cucumber in there would go really well in this application. To the point that if I had a choice between the two, I think I would use Hendricks instead of Gordons, but to each their own.

The lime and the orgeat are there underneath the watermelon, and they play their supporting role well. I referenced another gin watermelon drink I made two years ago as the reference point for lime and orgeat measurements, but I think I’m slightly off on both. I’d dial up the lime, maybe to three quarters of an ounce, and slightly pull back on the orgeat. Granted the last tweak would reduce the almond notes that also work very well here, but it would also reduce how unexpectedly sweet this drink is. I think I forgot how sneaky sweet some watermelon can be, and the orgeat really brings that out. So I’d definitely sacrifice some subtle flavors to bring down the sweetness ever so slightly. Also, I think this could benefit from some heat, in the form of a jalapeno garnish, or maybe some blended/muddled peppers in with the watermelon. Watermelon and spicy flavors play really well together so I would bring that into the mix next time to see how it turns out.

The finish is a nice balance of all the flavors at work, minus the gin that gets overtaken as mentioned above. Overall, this is a good starting point for a solid summer drink. This would be a great drink for someone who either thinks they don’t like gin, or hasn’t tried it and wants to experiment with it. I’d definitely make this again with the tweaks mentioned above and see how it comes out. I’ve got something good cooking here and definitely will be experimenting with it this summer.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)