EmiliciousEmily H is one of those brilliant people who winds up running the government (and she’s got a recipe blog!). She’s a civil servant, working for the NSF, NASA, and now the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so just remember: she’s on your side, and she’s good at it. This spring, though, every couple of weeks she has to worry that her paycheck won’t show up. Budget negotiations in the House keep threatening to shut down the government. It’s a problem. I think she deserves a drink, don’t you?

I heard back from Emily about her requests for a cocktail after we’d done our first round of experimentations. She asked for something fruity and summery, and luckily, we’d already invented just such a cocktail:

The Emilicious

-1.5 oz. cucumber infused Hendricks gin
-0.5 oz. lime juice
-1.5 oz. watermelon (cubed and seeded)

Simply put all the ingredients into a shaker with plenty of ice, and shake vigorously, then pour into your chosen glass.

This is one of our simplest recipes so far, and definitely the most refreshing. It’s fruity, it’s summery, and it’s got a really interesting texture. Like Dr. Ueno’s Wild Thing, this cocktail uses a plant in the shaker that turns into a pulp and textures the drink. I like this technique a lot, and I’m looking forward to playing with it more after this project is finished.

I don’t know if it’s as easy to get cubed watermelon in D.C., where Emily lives, as it is here in New York, but here you just go to a steam-table deli and fill up a plastic thing with cut fruit to your heart’s content. You’ve got to take the seeds out, but after that it’s just our standard cucumber-infused Hendricks and lime juice. Easy.

You can taste the fruit of the watermelon first, and the acid of the lime. But just behind there’s the vegetable note of the cucumber, and weirdly enough it’s the complex herbal and alcoholic flavors of the gin that brings it all together. When it warms up, I’m looking forward to drinking these out in the sun.

Next up, and last in our cocktail series, is my very own brother and co-cocktail-inventor, Dennis Clark. Honestly, I have no idea what his drink will be. I’ve got to figure something out soon…

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