Drunken Watermelon - Mojito Style

This 4th of July my sister and I planned a picnic at a local park. We brought food and some adult beverages. I started seeing a trend on Pinterest that combined watermelon & adult beverages and knew it was a must try. Unfortunately, the only thing I could find was this tequila soaked watermelon recipe. I feel like everyone I know has a tequila story, and they never end with "and they lived happily ever after." Nope. Tequila stories usually end with "and then ...it's kind of a blur" and terrible pictures like this:

For the record, this was years ago. But still, I'm trying to do the running man in a sports bar: not my best side.

So being that most of my family has sworn off the stuff (myself included), I had to think up an alternative. I had some general alcohol's already, including the 20-something-female staple : Malibu Coconut Rum. I decided to pair that with the Watermelon since I've had pretty fantastic Watermelon Mojito's in the past. (If you're in my area, try it at Cubra Libre in Atlantic City.)

The original recipe calls for a making of simple syrup and then adding a the components of a margarita. For this, I made a simple syrup by boiling 3/4 cup of water and adding 1 cup of sugar, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Setting the mixture aside to cool, I started on the watermelon.

A couple hints for buying watermelon (which I learned the hard way from this experience):

• Go seedless! Especially for this recipe.
• You want there to be a yellow patch on the watermelon where it sat on the ground. My logic said "this one is completely green, that must mean it's good" No. The opposite is apparently true. Green all around = stringy bland grossness. 
• Get a smaller size watermelon. Once cut up, watermelon somehow self multiplies and all the sudden you're completely surround by an excess amount of the stuff.

So once I got the right melon (3 trips to the grocer!!) I cut it up to wedges, or as my nephew calls it, "those triangles with the rind still on it." and then it's time for the booze. Mix 2 cups of rum for 1 cup of the syrup. I put the watermelon in large ziploc bags (made for easier cooler transit) and poured syrup mixture as evenly as possible. Let it chill in the fridge for atleast an hour.

Of course it wouldn't be a mojito without mint. Unfortunately Mojito's must have been popular for the fourth because the grocery store was all out of fresh mint. I had to buy the dry mint flakes (it did the job, but isn't recommended).  That was 1:1 ratio of dry mint flakes : Sugar (1 tbs mint flakes + 1 tbs sugar = mint sugar!). 

With fresh mint, grind mint down with a mortar and pestle (or if you'r like me, and are not that fancy, use the back of a spoon). That ratio should be 1:2 (1 tbs fresh mint + 2 tbs sugar=mint sugar). You could put the mint sugar on before serving, but the sugar dissolves into the watermelon, and you loose that cool sugar texture. I say this from experience, as that's what I did. In hind sight, I wish I had served it as something on the side to dip in right before eating.

But you know what they say about hindsight...Anyway, hope you enjoy! ....(safely!)