Cocktail of the Week: The Hand Melon Smash

This week’s cocktail was inspired by Amanda Schuster, @winenshine on Twitter, who tweeted recently about making a Bourbon Peach Smash at Lobo on 5th Ave in my beloved Park Slope (flame away, Williamburgians). Anyway, I asked for the recipe and she sent it along and initially it was to be this week’s topic. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Saratoga Farmer’s Market.

I wanted to watch the Big One at York at Saturday (won by Moyenne Corniche, owned by none other than my man, Dan Hardcore). As a result, I was unable to get to the farmer’s market when the bell rung. As a result, the canners beat me to the peaches. I was crestfallen but not devastated, knowing that necessity is the mother of second choices. . .or something like that. I walked the rows of farmers’ stalls with Mugs, hoping to find an answer. And there it was. . .

OK, OK, I’m a fibbing a bit. The cantouloupe I purchased on Saturday wasn’t actually a famous Saratoga Hand Melon. But you gotta admit, the name Hand Melon Smash has a lot of romance to it than Cantoulope Smash, which sounds like the name of a Gallagher VHS tape, so I went with the former.

Here’s the one I bought, pictured with the other ingredients:

Special thanks to our friends Tim and Natalie who prepared a FANTASTIC dinner for us Sunday night, where we enjoyed shrimp ceviche, pasta salad, sweet corn, grilled ribs, and delicious lemon and chocolate bars.

Before the meal, though, it was cocktail time.

2 oz piece of cantoulope

3-4 mint leaves

2-3 shakes of bitters (we used Angostura but get creative here)

1 tablespoon of honey

2 ounces Bourbon

mint spring and/or lemon twist and/or melon chunk for garnish

Put the first four ingredients in a cocktail shaker and muddle, muddle, muddle. You want to liquify the melon as much as possible. Then fill your shaker with ice, shake very well and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish as desired. Prepare to be refreshed.