Watermelon liqueur at home – 4 recipes

There was this old joke: “Do you like watermelons?” “I love to eat. Yes, no.” But in vain – after all, “so”, that is, in the form of a delicious sweet liquor, this “berry” is even more seductive! Such a drink will make it possible at any time of the year to feel the taste of the long-gone Indian summer, mentally transport yourself to all this colorful splendor, enjoy the wondrous aroma of the beginning of autumn … Well, it’s delicious to drink, of course.

Watermelon is a fruit not only sweet and tasty, but also quite suitable for making a variety of alcohol. In one of the previous articles, we already talked about watermelon wine, today we will learn how to make watermelon liqueurs at home. Runet is filled with primitive recipes for a liqueur made from boiled watermelon juice with vanilla, but we tried to get you much more interesting recipes – for example, watermelon on cognac, liqueur with lemon and cactus juice, even an unexpected spicy-sweet liqueur from watermelon and jalapeno peppers – generally fire ! In short, there are plenty to choose from!

Melons are generally best suited for making liqueurs – their dull taste is well revealed in concentrated, rich drinks of low strength (so that alcohol does not interrupt the delicate aroma of raw materials) and high sweetness, because sugar is a natural flavor enhancer. We already have an article about melon liqueurs like “Midori” – a great thing! Watermelon liqueur is also produced industrially, for example, by the ubiquitous De Kuyper (although there probably isn’t a fruit that this brand doesn’t make booze from). But, of course, we are not interested in foreign exotics, but in our own, personally prepared liquor from an inexpensive and affordable fruit in the fall. We’ll talk about this.

Chipped watermelon – the simplest watermelon liqueur

Everyone has probably heard about the “drunk watermelon” – the berry is pumped up with vodka, cut and served on the table. All drunk and happy, the gestalt is complete. But just to swell is not our goal. On the basis of the “drunk watermelon” we will make a good, aged drink that will be pleasantly savored on long winter evenings in good company. For such a liquor, by the way, you don’t even need a jar – we will do everything right in the watermelon itself, that’s the originality of the recipe.

Making liquor is easy and fun! We’ll need a whole bottle of alcohol and a watermelon.

1. In the upper part of the watermelon – where the stalk is located, we make a circular cut with a knife with a diameter from the neck of our bottle. We cut out the crust along with the inedible white “sub-crust”, you can also scoop out a little pulp with a teaspoon. Carefully insert a bottle of alcohol into the hole formed, securely fasten it with improvised means – for example, just lean against the wall and wait. After a few hours, the berry will absorb alcohol, the hole will need to be plugged, the watermelon will be rewound with tape (so that it does not tear) and wait a week.
2. You can go the other way – take a large syringe and slowly, through the same hole, inject alcohol into the watermelon. It’s a chore, but it’s more reliable than the previous version. As soon as the fruit has absorbed all 0.5 liters, we rewind it with tape in the same way and leave it alone for a week.
3. Under the influence of alcohol, after 7-10 days, the watermelon “flesh” will soften and give out juice, which can simply be drained and filtered from seeds and pulp residues. Try the resulting “semi-finished product”. Too little alcohol? Add more. Little sweetness? Dissolve some sugar in the liquid. Would you like to add additional flavors? Take a little bit of vanilla, cinnamon, lemon zest or whatever you like.
4. Well, now – everything is according to a proven scheme. Bottle or jar, 1-2 weeks in a dark warm place, after that – filtration and at least a month’s rest. And after that – you can start tasting!

If the proportions are kept correctly, the watermelon liqueur prepared in such a simple way at home turns out to be light and unobtrusive, it does not surpass wine in strength, it comes out quite sweet even without sugar, it has a pale pink, and after careful filtration – an almost transparent color and a thin watermelon aroma. Use it well in a slightly chilled form or in cocktails.

Watermelon liqueur with lemon and … cacti! Polish recipe

Cactus juice is found in supermarkets, but is quite rare. You can make it yourself – from the fruits of common prickly pear (by the way, they also make an independent tincture from it – the recipe is in this article), although prickly pear is reluctantly squeezed out – in general, you decide, you can experiment and do without this ingredient at all – the drink is all should still be interesting!

1. Cut the watermelon, cut out the pulp and squeeze the juice into a saucepan with gauze or a thin cotton cloth. Add the juice of cacti and lemons, add 0.75 kg of sugar and try – the liquid should be very sweet, if necessary, increase the sugar content.
2. Put the saucepan on the stove, heat over low heat, stirring constantly, avoiding boiling, until the sugar is completely dissolved in the juice.
3. Pour the slightly cooled mixture into a large jar (at least 6-7 liters for our proportions), add alcohol, close the lid tightly and put it in a dark place for 3 weeks. If the bank will precipitate – it must be shaken.
4. After three weeks, the drink is filtered through a cotton or other filter, to simplify the task, you can leave it alone for the last couple of days of infusion, and then simply decant it with a straw.

You can try watermelon liqueur now, but after a couple of months of aging it will become much better!

Watermelon on cognac

The original is cognac, but you can take any other strong drink, from vodka or good moonshine (watermelon brandy is generally ideal!) To not too fragrant whiskey or light rum.

The drink is made in virtually the same way as most fruit liqueurs. We cut the watermelon pulp into large cubes, put it in a jar and pour it with alcohol. We stand 10 days in warmth and darkness. After that, we drain the tincture, and pour the rest of the pulp with sugar and rearrange it on the windowsill or in another sunny place. When the sugar is completely dissolved, drain the syrup and combine it with the tincture. It is better to gradually pour the syrup into the tincture and try – so as not to make the liquor completely cloying. After that, the drink must be filtered and kept for at least a month. Everyone, you can try!

Watermelon Jalapeno Liqueur – American Recipe

Sweet, spicy, unexpected, piping delicious! This original drink will appeal to gourmets, perfect for wild alcohol parties and just to surprise guests. By the way, this is not the only example of such a liquor, for example, here is a recipe for raspberry tincture with chili, and here is a Canadian Fireball liqueur with hot pepper, cinnamon and honey. The combination of sweet and spicy tastes in alcohol is interesting, original, and in which case it will help to warm up no worse than classic peppercorns.

This original drink is made quite simply. To begin with, the pepper must be cut into rings, placed in a jar along with the seeds and poured with alcohol. After a day, try a drop of tincture – if it is already sharp enough, you need to remove the pieces of jalapeno, if not, wait another 12 hours and so on until the result. Now we take the pulp of a watermelon, cut it into pieces, put it in a jar, fill it with the pepper we got – that is, “jalapeno” – and leave it in a dark place for a week. After that, the liquid must be filtered, sweetened with a syrup of equal parts of water and sugar (what is a “simple syrup” and how to prepare it, read here). After a couple more weeks of rest, everything will be ready!

As we can see, there is absolutely nothing difficult in making watermelon liqueurs at home, and the drinks turn out to be very tasty and definitely original! So we buy more “berries” until they are finally over, we arm ourselves with recipes from “Rum” and watermelon for glory!