21 Jul Watermelon Old Fashioned Cocktail Recipe
Watermelon Old Fashioned Cocktail Recipe
Before Memorial Day we kicked off our Summer Cocktail series, and since then we’ve been working to add to the collection in order to make summer 2016 the. best. summer. ever. You’ve joined us for Watermelon Week because what summer is complete without consuming watermelon at every chance you get. So join us as we revel in in summer’s best fruit with fabulous watermelon cocktails.
At some point we should really ban ourselves from anymore old fashioned drinks, but we just can’t help ourselves (this, this, this this, this, this, and this. See, we should really be banned from more). The possibilities are completely endless and completely delicious. It’s the best way to enjoy the complexities of a spirit with just a few other notes added in. When we received Trope in the mail from our friends at Wigle, we immediately wanted to try it with watermelon. Watermelon is pretty delicate so it needs a companion that is interesting and crisp but not overpowering.
Enter Trope.
Wigle, like many of the craft distillers we know, swore they’d never make a vodka. Vodka, as we’ve mentioned, isn’t all that popular with craft distillers or craft bartenders because of its neutral character. Who wants to pour their heart and soul into making something that tastes as close as possible to nothing? But for Wigle, in the end, ‘Waste not, want not,’ won out over their aversion to vodka. The distilling process involves three phases: the head, the heart, and the tail. The heart is the best of the distillation, the part that is usually bottled. The head and the tail, for different reasons, don’t quite make the cut.
But what do you do with the head and the tail? Wigle, as they were making their very fine ginever, found themselves asking that very question. Their answer: make a vodka of it. It would be a shame to waste all that alcohol. Why not turn it into a neutral spirit instead? The result was not quite neutral, in the best possible way. Trope is a vodka, with just a hint of ginnyness.
It was perfect for our watermelon old fashioned. We wanted the watermelon to shine through, not being upstaged by the spirit. But a completely neutral vodka seemed a little too boring. Trope was just right.
Watermelon Old Fashioned Cocktail Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 oz Wigle Whiskey’s Trope or your favorite, decently priced vodka
- 4 tsp watermelon simple syrup*
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- 1 dash Wigle Whiskey’s Rosemary bitters
Instructions
- Muddle watermelon simple, rosemary, and bitters in the bottom of a glass.
- Add Trope and ice.
- Give it a gentle stir (trying to keep the rosemary at the bottom)
- Garnish with a sprig of rosemary or wedge of watermelon (optional).
*Watermelon Simple Syrup Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup watermelon juice (puree approximately 1/4 of a watermelon in a food processor and strain with fine mesh strainer)
- 1 cup sugar
Instructions
- Combine sugar and watermelon juice in a sauce pan
- Bring to boil, let boil for 60 seconds
- Remove from heat, let steep for 30 minutes
- Strain with fine mesh strainer and let cool.
- Store in refrigerator.
