watermelon ginger limeaid cocktail

Yummy note: It's Secret Recipe Club time! If you've never heard of the Secret Recipe Club is, then check it out here Amanda's Cookin' and join us! The recipe I'm featuring this month is coming from Lynne's blog Cafe Lynnylu. Lynne's watermelon ginger limeaid. Lynne has a great food photography collection on her site here, so it was pretty cool to be picking from all her wonderful shots. I decided to pick out a drink from her blog for two reasons, 1-it appears she does routine fun little "Thirsty Thursday" entries and 2- I've never done a drink on my blog before, so what a perfect way to start! Below is my cocktail rendition of Watermelon Ginger Limeade. 

Watermelon Ginger Limeade Cocktail

Ingredients:
about a half of a large watermelon, roughly 6 or so cups chopped watermelon
1/4 sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
couple of limes, roughly 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
vodka, I used a watermelon vodka I had on hand already

 

  

Directions:

Chop up your watermelon into large pieces. Toss watermelon into blender. (Note, if you don't feel like turning on your blender, you can always just mash up your watermelon pieces by hand.) Pulse the watermelon chunks in the blender until it appears to be frothy and smooth. Pour the watermelon juice mixture through a colander to ensure the fibrous watermelon pulp is left over. In your large bowl, you'll see the pretty pink watermelon juice left behind from the colander. Discard the watermelon pulp and you should have about 4 cups of watermelon juice to use for your drink mix. Set aside juice to chill while you prepare your gingery simple syrup mix.

Next, chop up some fresh ginger, and add to a small saucepan with the sugar and water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Cool liquid to room temperature. (Note: I couldn't wait to try my drink, so I really skipped through this cooling step, and added some ice cubes to the syrup mixture to speed it up a bit.) In a larger pitcher or container, combine chilled watermelon juice, ginger syrup, and your freshly squeezed lime juice together. At this point, you can serve your watermelon ginger limeaid (in the non-alcoholic form).

For those that want the extra cocktail kick, add a shot of vodka to your drink. Serve your drinks in a pretty sugar rimmed glass with watermelon wedges. Sit back and enjoy this summery drink. :)