Welcome to Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Watermelon Margaritas!

Something cool for a hot Labor Day weekend.

It even looks cool.

Greetings, Wonketteers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. We’re finishing off the summer with some scorching heat. Time for one last super-cooling and refreshing margarita before the season turns. Here’s a cocktail that would be perfect for sipping at a Motor City Labor Day pool party. Let’s make up a Watermelon Margarita. Here’s the recipe: 

Watermelon Margarita

2 oz fresh watermelon juice

2 oz El Jimador Blanco Tequila

½ oz fresh lime juice

½ oz honey syrup

4 mint leaves

1-2 shakes Tajin

In a cocktail shaker, muddle the mint leaves in the honey syrup. Add remaining ingredients and shake well. Double strain into a rocks glass over generous amounts of ice. Garnish with a watermelon cube and mint sprig. 

But wait, there’s more! What if you’re the host of a pool party in Detroit this weekend, and you want to make a pitcher full of watermelon margaritas! We could just scale up the recipe, but that creates some logistical challenges. Here’s a better approach:

Watermelon Margarita Mix

3 lb. watermelon spears, juiced (roughly 6 cups yield)

1/2 cup bottled lime juice

1/4 cup agave syrup

3-4 large mint sprigs

1 teaspoon Tajin

Add lime juice, watermelon juice, agave syrup, and Tajin to a large punch bowl with ice. Bruise the mint leaves and add them to the punchbowl. Stir and let sit covered in the fridge for 1-2 hours. Before service, strain into a pitcher with fresh ice. Serve with blanco tequila, white rum, and/or vodka on the side.

Margaritas are the most popular cocktail in America these days, which tickles me pink. Tequila supports any kind of fruit; it’s easy to come up with a unique cocktail by adding a new fruit juice to the classic margarita recipe. If you keep your eye on the ball and fill your glass with flavors that work well together, you can’t go wrong. Watermelon, mint, honey, lime, and Tajin; how can you not like that flavor profile? It’s worth noting that there’s no room for the traditional triple sec here. Orange flavoring isn’t a comfortable fit with the other ingredients, so we’ll discard it this time. 

Most cheap margaritas use simple syrup for their sweetener; a premade margarita mix is almost inevitably sweetened with corn syrup. High-end margarita recipes will use agave nectar, on the theory that more agave flavor in your tequila-based cocktail is a good thing. I used honey in the small version of this cocktail, because I like it better and it’s easy to make a small amount of honey syrup. Agave syrup, on the other hand, is a touch thinner and dissolves readily without further treatment. We’re also providing guests with the option of controlling the amount of alcohol in the drink. Using agave sweetener means that even NA guests get a little whisper of tequila flavor in their punch.

This is an excellent time to reissue my standard warning about bad tequila: DO NOT DRINK BAD TEQUILA. “Bad Tequila” means any bottle that does not say “100% blue agave” on the label. If the bottle says “made with blue agave,” that means it’s 51% blue agave, 49% dirt cheap Mexican rum. If you’ve ever gotten a headache from drinking tequila, it’s because you drank this garbage instead of the good stuff. Life is way too short to drink garbage. Don’t drink bad tequila. (To be completely explicit: Jose Cuervo is the devil’s armpit squeezings. Drink it at your own peril.) 

I really do like the idea of letting guests choose the amount of alcohol in their drink, especially at a casual get together. If you don’t want alcohol, or still suffer from bad Cuervo memories, you can can still be social and taste without any self-consciousness. I would recommend having a shot glass on hand to measure. Pouring two ounces of liquor freehand is the practiced skill of a professional bartender. Amateurs always underestimate.

Please don’t forget about your tequila bottle as summer turns into fall. Tequila’s earthy, funky flavor is wonderful in its own right, and deserves to be celebrated outside of the margarita as the seasons turn. The climate being what it is, we’ll probably have a few more scorching days before autumn sets in. A few more September margaritas might be in order. 

Let’s talk ingredients:

Oops. See that glass hiding behind the Tajin? That’s a glass of watermelon juice. Honest. Photography isn’t my strong suit.

Watermelon juice: Juicing a watermelon is ridiculously easy. I pureed a pound of watermelon spears from the grocery store and double-strained the pulp. Pouring the pulp through a coffee filter would work just as well. The riper the watermelon, the better. Under-ripe watermelon has a vegetal note that reads like cucumber in this drink. It’s not an unwelcome flavor, but if you want a real hit of watermelon flavor, use watermelon that’s been sitting in the fridge for a few days. Do yourself a favor and taste the pure watermelon juice as you make up the cocktail. You’ll immediately realize that watermelon-flavored Jolly Ranchers are a fraud. 

 El Jimador Blanco Tequila: El Jimador Tequila is one of the top selling brands of tequila in Mexico, which I consider a serious endorsement. It’s absolutely killer for doing shots and drinking neat. I like using it in my margaritas as well, but it does hit the agave notes rather strongly. I’d recommend Exoitico tequila as another affordable blanco tequila. If you see terms like “Silver” on your tequila instead of “Blanco,” you have encountered Bad Tequila. Put the bottle down. Drink good tequila. No compromises, no headaches.

Lime juice: You cannot make a margarita without lime juice. Everything else is negotiable, but without the lime, you’ve left margarita-land. Use fresh juice whenever you can, but for a pitcher plastic limes will do.

Honey or agave syrup: Honey syrup is equal parts honey and water, heated until they fully combine. I microwave an ounce of each in a small glass for thirty seconds, instead of making a big batch. We’re diluting the honey to ensure it dissolves in the drink properly. Agave syrup is thin enough to add directly to a cocktail without dilution.

Mint leaves: If you use more than four mint leaves in this glass I won’t complain, but don’t skimp. A touch of menthol in the cocktail ups the cooling factor very nicely. Don’t go overboard when you muddle the mint leaves; you only need to bruise them, not mash them into pulp. Likewise, bruising the mint leaves doesn’t need to be an overly violent process. Slapping them on the kitchen counter once or twice will suffice. Double straining the cocktail as you pour it into the glass catches the last tiny bits of mint leaf.

Tajin: Do yourself a favor. Shake some Tajin over a leftover watermelon spear. It’s a revelation. The salt, spice, and dehydrated lime make watermelon amazing. Tajin in the cocktail brings a spark of heat and sour to the drink — a perfect balancing act. 

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