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As you may already know, July is Watermelon Month here at Brit & Co. We've served up a dozen mouthwatering recipes by fellow foodies in the blogosphere, created our own summer comfort food in the form of watermelon grilled cheese bites, and now we're gettin' tipsy.
You've likely heard of the infamous Vodka Watermelon. We decided to take a vodka-ed watermelon and kick it into a more gourmet realm with help from cucumbers, mint, and jalapeno. Presenting our Cucumber Watermelon Shooters!
Ingredients:
– 3-4 cucumbers
– 1/2 watermelon
– 1/2 bottle of vodka (try our DIY Jalapeno Infused Vodka!)
– 1 jalapeno
– mint
– Tools: melon baller
To make a vodka watermelon, cut a whole in it (about the size of a bottleneck), and jam a bottle of vodka upside down in the hole. Leave it for 1-3 days, allowing the watermelon to absorb the vodka slowly but surely. There's a great how-to here.
Now, time for the food prep. The first thing to do (while your watermelon absorbs those last drops of vodka) is to create your cucumber shot glasses. The steps for these are similar to our Creamy Cucumber Cups, though our cups will be a little taller.
Cut your cups. You'll get 3-4 cups per cucumber. You'll have to cut a discard slice in between each cup so that you don't end up with weird angled cups.
Now, let's turn them into cups! Use a melon baller or spoon to scoop out the inside of your cucumber. We took out about 1 1/2 cucumber balls. (Set aside for cucumber water!)
Next, prep the watermelon. Cut off about a third of the watermelon, scoop out the good stuff and get your chop on.
And onto the mint. Chop a handful of mint pretty finely. Set aside in a bowl.
For the jalapenos, we took out the seeds and hot stuff but feel free to leave them if you're a bit bolder. Dice and add to the bowl with the mint.
To really bring out the mint and jalapeno flavors, we added a little bit of vodka to the bowl and muddled everything together.
Add to the watermelon. Stir it up and add additional mint and jalapeno as needed.
Scoop watermelon into cups.
Set on a kitchen towel or paper towel for a few minutes before serving.
This will absorb the excess moisture present in both the watermelon mix and and the cucumber. We let ours sit for about 5 minutes and the excess moisture was gone.
And that's it!
Perfect for your next barbecue, picnic, or rooftop happy hour!
How do you keep yourself both refreshed and a little tipsy in the summer months? Tried out any new watermelon recipes this summer? Let us know in the comments below or find us over on Twitter.