Spike It: Watermelon Vodka Soda Floats
My watermelon obsession runs deep. And it may or may not have all started with Dirty Dancing. When Jennifer Grey carried the watermelon into the dance club and then annoyingly scolded herself with “I carried … a watermelon?!” with the biggest rolled eyes ever, it spoke to me. It spoke to me so much that I used to make my mom rehearse all of the lines and even the dance moves with me in our living room.
So, long story short, I’ve loved watermelon ever since. Even if I didn’t actually love the fruit (which I do), I’d probably pretend to anyway just so I could literally carry a watermelon and repeat that line for the rest of my life.
One of my absolute favorite things to do with watermelon is to make my own “juice” by simply adding watermelon to a blender and pureeing until the entire mixture is liquid, and then straining it into a large pitcher. It’s super-refreshing and not as sweet as you’d think, but wonderfully sweet at the same time. Naturally sweet.
I’ve done everything with this juice, and one of my favorite things is to make a homemade soda. Find your favorite soda water and combine the two — and boom! It’s as easy as that.
The only thing better, though, is adding vodka to spike it.
And the only thing better than that is to add ice cream and turn it into one big old boozy float. See how it’s done, below.
Watermelon Vodka Soda Floats
Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups fresh watermelon juice
1/2 cup vodka
3/4 cup club soda
1 pint vanilla ice cream
Directions:
Fill two large glasses with ice cream scoops. Divide the watermelon juice evenly between the two glasses and then pour the vodka in too. Gently stir a bit if you can — you don’t want to totally melt the ice cream. Pour the soda over top of the juice until it reaches the top. Add some straws and sip, sip!
Note: To make the watermelon juice, puree watermelon cubes in a blender until they are liquid. Strain the mixture through a mesh sieve into a measuring cup. The amount of watermelon you need will differ depending on the water content of the fruit, but a baby seedless watermelon will yield a few cups.
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Jessica is the voice behind the blog How Sweet Eats. She can be found on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, and she’s on Snapchat at howsweeteats.
