My first original cocktail concoction (with help from Matt) and the featured image for this blog!
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This was my seminal original cocktail that birthed the idea of a cocktail blog. The actual launch of this blog was one year to the day of the creation of this cocktail. Well, sort of, since Thanksgiving falls on a different date each year. As I look back on that night, one year later when this was actually posted, I can remark on how much I’ve learned and grown, both as a mixologist (and as a drunk).
The genesis of this cocktail was mostly visual: I like the color green, as you can tell. I also like lime and melon, and I had recently discovered and fell in love with Grey Goose’s melon flavored vodka as a digestif at an Italian restaurant. I became curious about other melon flavors in drinks, and recalled hearing reference to a “melonball” as a cheesy suburban housewife cocktail and I wanted to try one without any idea what it was or how it was made. I assumed I had to buy some Midori melon liqueur, which I did, but beyond that I was clueless. I looked up a few recipes, but they were all very simple – basically a screwdriver with Midori. Boring! Some had variations with pineapple or grapefruit juice, and of course the actual ball of melon, but they all sounded very sweet and with more juice than alcohol. Yuck! So I kept looking, and based on my love for martinis and the Lemon Drop in particular, I looked up Melon Drop and Melontini to see what was out there. They were all gross sounding and involved bullshit like pureed melon, sweet and sour mix and fucking Pucker’s watermelon schnapps! So, it was time for me to create my own cocktail by experimentation. Fortunately I had a willing taste tester and co-creator visiting for Thanksgiving, so off we went. It took us many subtle variations and many many drinks, and we couldn’t agree which recipe we liked best so I’m including both. Actually we had hangovers the next day and forgot which one was the “real one” because all the napkins with recipes scrawled on them had ingredients crossed out and lists of names that we had considered, such as “The Atomic Melon” and only two seemed accurate, so here they are as best as I can remember:
Sour version (Matt’s favorite):
1 ½ oz. Grey Goose melon vodka
1 oz. Midori® Melon Liqueur
½ oz. Grand Marnier
½ oz. fresh lime juice
Sweet version (the one pictured and my personal favorite):
1 ½ oz. Grey Goose melon vodka
1 oz. Midori® Melon Liqueur
¾ oz. fresh lime juice
1 tsp sugar
Dip rim of tumbler glass in mixture of salt and sugar with lemon and lime zest like a margarita. Mix sugar in lime juice until dissolved, or create lime simple syrup instead (see method used in my Lemon Drop recipe and substitute lime peels instead of lemon). Combine all with ice in shaker, shake, strain and pour into tumbler with ice, garnish with lime wheel and twist as pictured