Sips & Synopsis

• This Weeks Makings

• Trivia Question

• Drink of the Week - Honey Deuce

• Behind the Bar - Fresh Lemonade

• Bonus Cocktails

• Mocktail or Zero Proof Option

This Weeks Makings.

The US Open started Monday and runs through September 13.

For the next two and a half weeks, a lot of the people in those stands are holding the same drink. Tall plastic cup, pale gold on top, deep red at the bottom, three little green melon balls on a pick laid across the rim.

That drink is the Honey Deuce, and it sells in the hundreds of thousands over the course of the tournament.

Vodka, fresh lemonade, and a pour of raspberry liqueur that sinks straight to the bottom. Three ingredients. No shaker. About two minutes once the lemonade is made.

We poured a Pimm's Cup for Wimbledon back in June. This is the American answer, and it is even simpler to put together.

In this week's newsletter:

• The Honey Deuce, the drink that took over the US Open

• Why fresh lemonade decides whether this one works

• Two bonus cocktails, different spirits, both built for a hot afternoon

• A true or false question about how the drinking straw caught on

• A zero-proof version with the same three melon balls

Trivia Question❓

True or false: the drinking straw caught on in America because of a cocktail.

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter

The Honey Deuce

Vodka, fresh lemonade, and raspberry liqueur, with three honeydew melon balls standing in for tennis balls.

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz vodka

• 3 oz fresh lemonade

• 0.5 oz Chambord or another raspberry liqueur

• 3 honeydew melon balls

• Ice

Directions

1. Fill a tall glass with ice

2. Add the vodka and the lemonade and stir once

3. Pour the raspberry liqueur slowly over the top and let it sink to the bottom on its own

4. Scoop three balls from a honeydew and slide them onto a cocktail pick

5. Lay the pick across the rim and serve without stirring again

Why It Works
Nick Mautone built this drink in 2006 after Grey Goose asked for a signature cocktail for the US Open, and the story goes he got the idea at a farmers market when he saw honeydew melon balls and thought they looked like tennis balls (the full story and recipe are here). The build is smarter than it looks. Vodka and lemonade on their own is a porch drink. Raspberry liqueur is heavier than lemonade, so it sinks instead of mixing, and you get a red-to-gold gradient plus a hit of berry on the first sip and the last one. Fresh lemonade keeps it tart enough that the liqueur never turns the glass into candy. Do not stir after the liqueur goes in. The layers are the drink.

Behind the Bar - Fresh Lemonade

Lemonade in a cocktail is not the yellow stuff from a carton. It is lemon juice, sugar, and water, and it takes about five minutes.

This is the ratio worth memorizing:

• 1 part fresh lemon juice

• 1 part simple syrup

• 2 parts cold water

One cup of lemon juice, one cup of simple syrup, and two cups of cold water gives you a quart. That is eight Honey Deuces.

Simple syrup: stir equal parts sugar and hot water until it dissolves. Refrigerated, it keeps a month.

Four things that make a difference:

• Roll the lemons on the counter first. Press down hard before you cut them and you will get noticeably more juice out of each one.

• Juice the same day you pour. Fresh lemon juice starts tasting flat after about a day in the fridge.

• Taste it before you build the drink. Lemons vary. If it makes you pucker, add water an ounce at a time. If it tastes thin, add lemon.

• Bottled lemonade is too sweet for this one. If it is what you have, add half an ounce of fresh lemon juice per cup to bring it back.

A few tools that help

• Citrus Press: because squeezing by hand leaves a third of the juice in the lemon

• Melon Baller: for the three green spheres that make this drink what it is

Make the quart on Saturday. It keeps in the fridge all week and it turns a two-minute drink into a thirty-second one.

Bonus Cocktails

Two more for a hot afternoon, each with a different spirit doing the work.

The Gin Rickey

Gin, lime, soda water, and no sugar at all.

Ingredients

• 2 oz gin

• 0.5 oz fresh lime juice (half a lime, shell saved)

• 4 oz chilled soda water

• Ice

Directions

Squeeze half a lime into a highball glass and drop the spent shell in. Fill with ice and add the gin. Top with cold soda water. Stir once, gently, so you keep the fizz.

Why it works
The Rickey came out of Shoomaker's bar in Washington in the 1880s, and the original was made with bourbon. Gin took over by the 1890s and never gave it back. There is no sweetener anywhere in it, which is what sets it apart from almost every other summer drink. The lime shell in the glass keeps releasing oil while you sip, so the last mouthful tastes like the first one.

The Sherry Cobbler

Sherry, orange, and a glass packed with crushed ice.

Ingredients

• 3 oz amontillado sherry

• 0.5 oz simple syrup

• 2 orange slices

• Crushed ice

• Orange slice and a few berries to garnish

Directions

Muddle the orange slices with the simple syrup in a shaker. Add the sherry and a scoop of ice and shake for about five seconds. Strain into a glass packed with crushed ice. Garnish with an orange slice and whatever berries are in the fridge. Serve with a straw.

Why it works
This was the biggest drink in America in the 1800s. It is in Jerry Thomas's 1862 bartender's guide, Charles Dickens wrote it into Martin Chuzzlewit, and by 1888 the bartender Harry Johnson called it the most popular beverage in this country. Sherry is a fortified wine, so a cobbler lands closer to a glass of wine than to a cocktail. That is what makes it the right third round on a warm afternoon.

Mocktail or Zero Proof Option

The Zero Proof Deuce

Same layers, same three melon balls, none of the proof.

Ingredients

• 4 oz fresh lemonade

• 2 oz sparkling water

• 0.5 oz raspberry syrup

• 3 honeydew melon balls

• Ice

Directions

Fill a tall glass with ice. Add the lemonade and the sparkling water. Pour the raspberry syrup slowly over the top and let it settle at the bottom. Lay three honeydew melon balls on a pick across the rim and serve without stirring.

Raspberry syrup: heat half a cup of raspberries, half a cup of sugar, and half a cup of water in a small pan until the berries break down, about five minutes. Strain out the seeds and chill. It keeps two weeks in the fridge.