Everybody back to work?  Need a drink? We know that we do.  After an amazing summer we are all back to the grind.

Since summer is not officially over, we wanted to share one of our favorites of the season.

We did loads of experiments with fruits, simple sugars, and struggled to find decent rum and tequila in the South of France.  Nevertheless we were victorious in our quest, and have unanimously named the Watermelon Basil Gin Fizz our official cocktail.

We tried the recipe with many different watermelons 😉  Some from the market in St. Tropez, others from the supermarket (the evil Spar) and the absolute best from our local farmer Yann.

watermelons-at-market

You will never look at watermelon in the same way!

tray-with-watermelon-cocktail-and-glasses

 

Watermelon Basil Gin Fizz

Yield: 1 pitcher

Ingredients:

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup fresh basil, loosely packed
4 cups watermelon juice
Juice of 2 Meyer lemons
3 cups Gin, chilled
Basil leaves for garnish
Perrier, chilled
Ice cubes

Directions:

For the Basil Simple Syrup:

Place water, sugar and basil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, and let stand 30 minutes. Pour liquid through a wire-mesh strainer, discarding basil. Cover and chill 4 hours.

For the Cocktail:
Remove rind and cube the watermelon.  Pass through a strainer.  This will create a watermelon juice while guarding the seeds.In a large pitcher, add the watermelon juice, simple syrup, lemon juice and gin.  Stir well and taste.  Adjust the lemon and sugar if need be.To Serve:

Place ice and one basil leaf in each glass. Fill 3/4 full with cocktail and top off with Perrier.


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