Watermelon Margarita (punch)

It's that time again, and this time for that time, we have for you a thing that is available many places, and in those many places they're almost always done wrong. Watermelon Margaritas are not some cheap tequila with some dissolved melted jolly rancher in it.  This uses cheap tequila with real watermelon and some good old fashioned elbow grease to make a really great drink.

The Watermelon Margarita

A word on equipment; you will need one of these:

This is a food mill.  It will be used to separate the juice of the watermelon from the fibrous flesh of it, which although is nice to eat, it is not nice to drink.








It takes a LONG time for this t freeze, because there is minimal surface area. 6-8 hours.
Allergy note:  Using balloons can create a danger with those who have allergies to latex.  If you're worried about that, then use a milk carton or plastic Chinese food container.  You'll basically get the same result, different shape.   You can see that in action in our Sangria episode.









Try to get organic hippie oranges that don't use artificial anything.  Why? Well, there's this thing out there called Citrus Red 2.  This is banned for use in foods for its habit of giving people cancer.... oh wait did I say banned in foods?  I meant banned in foods except for orange peels.  So, if you go ahead and throw a peel with Citrus Red 2 in tequila (or any other booze for that matter), then congrats you just made cancer-juice.







By the way, the Tequila we are using is Camarena Reposado, which is an excellent value and is a fine one to use if you are just looking to get some Tequila to mix with some stuff.   Camarena Tequila can be easily used in a variety of cocktails, but is made well enough to have on its own if you are ok with the fact that it's not the super duper best in the entire universe of all time.   So, it's not the most sipping bestest Tequila in the world, but it is a great bang for the buck and surprisingly not bad at all on its own.








In all seriousness, if you were making some artesinal margarita out of top notch tequila and nothing else, the agave nectar would be something that makes a difference.  But we're making a huge bucket of punch here with watermelon in it, so the whole value of using agave nectar is mostly muted by the rest of everything in this.
























Remember to get all the watermelon guts out of the top part that you cut off as well.  There's plenty in there. 












I swear, that's all from 1 watermelon.















Non-Alcoholic Option:
It's fine to leave out any alcohol in this, and just add some 7up or Club Soda or something, and you've got a punch that's ok for the kiddies.























 





There you have it. How to create and (responsibly) use the watermelon margarita. 


NEXT UP:
A trio of hot rum based beverages.  Rum Toddy, Hot Butter Rum, and Koffie Van Brunt.

Nutmeg will be involved.  ...also rum.

Thin Mint Milkshake

So if you were smart, you picked up enough Girl Scout Cookies when they hit the street earlier this year to fill your end-of-the-world chest freezers to last until 2099 when the dead have ruled the earth (then lost it in a game of cribbage), when shoes are illegal, and the ants have taken over all the wal-mart supercenters. Now... you may think your cookie supply may last that long, but you know that shit's gonna be gone by Halloween.

Now, for those of you who think that these little disks of sugar infused trans-fat coated in a gooey chocolate, garnered from the abuse of child slave labor on coco plantations, here is a way to make Thin Mints at home in the event you can't get the stuff from your local dealer.

Anyway, if you have some Thin Mints, ice cream, and a' hunkering for a way to beat the heat that does not involve getting nekkid (necessarily), take a shot at this bad boy:

THE THIN MINT MILKSHAKE



Yay!

Believe it or not, that cookie stood up on its own the first time I tried.



...Seriously I ate an entire box of these things before I even got around to photographing this, and that was within 6 hours.



Promise, this is the last episode with a blender in it for a while. Bad news is that the next episode has an even more specialized piece of equipment. But it can work without electricity.



Seriously, all the ingredients should be brought as close to or below the freezing temp. as possible, including the blender blade, the glass, cookies, milk, all that. Because warm ingredients melt things.



By the way, that ice cream comes from the very first Häagen-Dazs scoop shop in... ever. Also BTW, they still sell eggcreams, even though they're not on the menu.



Making this in terms of proportions, really depends on a lot of things. I don't like to state explicit measurements because everyone has a differentiating sense of taste and what they like. So if you really like these cookies, then use a lot of them (but FYI, they tend to sink while the cream floats), if you like it only slightly mint flavored, then use vanilla or chocolate ...or any other flavor... If you're a Mint Julep fan, then a shot of bourbon in the think mint shake will bring back some familiar flavors.  You can even do this with vanilla ice cream and those Samoa cookies and throw a shot of Malibu Rum in there and Shazam: you've got yourself some sort of demented Pina Colada of awesomeness. ..actually... Tune in March 2013 for that.












Hooray!

Join us Next Time:

Watermelon Margarita Punch from Scratch.

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Cave Johnson's Combustible Lemonade

OK people. After some technical issues, a thing in Vegas, and a brief stint in the ER (knife fight ...no really), we're back on track.

Those of you who don't know who Cave Johnson is, might want to take a listen to a short motivational speech of his:   http://youtu.be/Dt6iTwVIiMM  


Aperture Science is proud to bring you Cave Johnson's Combustible Lemonade. A true cocktail concept of Combustible Lemonade, not some sad idea of what it should be... from a math nerd who can only compute "combustible" + "lemonade" = "lemonade on fire." We've officially thrown down the gauntlet in front of The Insatiable Geek's version of this over on Drunken Moogle which does absolutely no justice to this awesome concept. No friends, a cocktail is more than a visualization of a math formula. It must invoke a flowering mixture of sensory interplay, bringing them all through a linear spectrum which at its end becomes a singular idea. This is truly a Combustible Lemonade, born of anger and frustration at the lemons of life.



...Science.

That's a real objays-d'arts, drawn and signed by the artist Yoshitaka Amano himself. The guy who basically created the Moogle has created an imbibing one here. It was in storage for a long time and did get a bit messed up. But it's mine.

Now, Goldschlager is a type of cinnamon schnapps. Quality stuff. It's also the only one you should use for this. AfterShock is terrible and artificially flavored/colored. You don't want the visual aspects of this drinkable art coming out looking like moldy orange juice and tasting half of trashcan punch. No, unless you're a teenager (or a woman in their 30's who thinks Sex and the City is a documentary) stay away from the day-glow juvenile ingredients.

Why this additive? Because we're making a true cocktail and it's called "Combustible Lemonade." We do not just pander to the visual. This is about all senses culminating with taste (smell actually shares this and one other mechanism, the one for sound).

Chariots Chariots.

Lemoncello made the traditional way is usually transparent. If you are buying anything that's opaque, it's because it was made quick and dirty like the above. ...still tastes good.

There you have it. A true cocktail, addressing all five senses:

Gaze and see; The inviting yet concealing nature of this creation, with its opaque nature which begs for exploration to discover what lurks just beneath the surface. Staring directly at you from a strong serious shape, coupled with a pile of flaming lemons, this looks you in the eye explicitly says "you must be this tall, to ride." But what's that sound?; The gentle puffing of your flaming lemon reminds you that time is of the essence and as you grab and drop your this citrous mini-molotov through the gaping opening of the glass and into the swirling concealing abyss of you-know-not-what. It falls within its grasp, and the hisssss from the extinguishing flame and its rising vapor give you... That Smell; All is now tinged with the watercolor of lemon, but that lemon foundation permeating all thins casts shadows on something... more. This is more than just some hooched-up lemon... something where danger lurks beneath the flame kissed surface. And so now the enigma widens as you pick up the glass and your fingers Touch its cold cold surface. Fire and Ice now juxtapose themselves within the still gestating full image which has yet to appear but now is desperately anticipated. Tasting this creation opens a floodgate of lemon clad deliciousness quickly filling every space with esurient sweetness. At that very instant bursting forth from the friendly-faced lemon smiles, cobra fangs leap out and spit their fiery venom of hot sweet cinnamon. The rage of Cave Johnson lives on, in his Combustible Lemonade.

The wife called that "ultra gay" after she read that. ...yeah.

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I tried to take an artsy-fartsy picture but it came out bad and all that stuff.
Then I stopped caring because I had already put away 2 of these in 12 minutes.

This is not some Mike's Hard w/o the bubbles, or something made with Ciroc vodka and Country Time lemonade in a fancy shmancy glass to sell to Lehman Brothers PYT rejects in size zero dresses at $14 a pop. (yeah sure lady... I'm sure you got that job because you're sooooo smaaaarrt and not because of those giant tits). But it will knock you on your ass if you think this is some light sippy wine cooler. It's a serious cocktail.


Next Time:

Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mint Milkshakes!

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