Mocktail: Spicy Sandia

It might be late May, but it doesn't feel like summer in Boston yet. We got a brief taste of seasonally-appropriate (or even seasonally extreme) weather when it hit ninety degrees for two days last week, and I ran out and bought herbs and vegetables for my garden thinking that the warm weather had finally arrived. But then it promptly returned to fifty degrees and raining. At least I don't need to water the plants. I'm not exactly in a hurry to get to sweltering heat, but a few days in the seventies certainly wouldn't be unwelcome.

While this mocktail is more ideal for sipping on the porch in the summer heat, its color and spice certainly brightened up my rainy day. One of the biggest challenges to mocktail recipes, I've found, is finding ingredients that make up for the liquid volume usually taken up by alcohol. There's a reason you see a ton of drinks made with club soda and ginger beer - they're easy add-ins. Things like tonic water, shrubs, fruit juices, and teas are other good options. When brainstorming ingredients for this purpose, it occurred to me that watermelon would be a fantastic addition to a mocktail - colorful, subtly sweet, and very juicy. And so this ode to a margarita was born. It's ridiculously tasty and extremely refreshing. I added some jalapeño for a kick and some smoked salt on the rim for a bit of extra flavor and aroma. Smoked salt isn't something I've used before, but it's an amazing rimmer for cocktails. Look for it at your grocery store with the organic spices.

Booze it up: One word: tequila.

Spicy Sandia

8 1-inch cubes watermelon
2-4 thin slices jalapeño pepper (depending on spiciness and how you like it)
1 oz. lime juice
3/4 oz. agave nectar
1 oz. club soda
Smoked salt, for rim

To prepare the glass, rum the rim or exterior of a rocks glass with a wedge of lime and roll it in smoked salt. Fill the glass with ice. Combine watermelon and jalapeño in the bottom of a shaker and muddle well to extract the juices from the watermelon and incorporate the spice from the pepper. Add lime juice and agave nectar. Fill the shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Fine-strain into the prepared glass. Top with club soda and garnish with a slice of watermelon and a wedge of lime.

Grilled Pineapple Margarita

The Margarita is a cocktail that positively begs for experimentation. There are so many different things you can do with it. One of the easiest variations is just to add different fruits. I already made Peach Margaritas, which were really good.

But these Grilled Pineapple Margaritas are better.

This recipe, from Erin of Platings and Pairings, is amazing. It requires a fair bit of preparation, but it's completely worth it. This is a whole other level of margarita.

First of all, you're not just throwing in some pineapple - it's grilled pineapple. If you've never grilled pineapple, you should know that it's delicious. It gets sweet and caramelized and smoky. You're going to want to grill it well ahead of time so it has time to cool. Try not to eat it all while you wait.

On top of that, this margarita uses jalapeno-infused tequila. It's the first time I've made it, but I can already see myself experimenting with it in lots of cocktails. This also needs to be made ahead of time. Since I didn't want to make a lot, I poured about 4 ounces of tequila blanco into a mason jar and added half a jalapeno, sliced. Though Erin recommended letting the tequila infuse for 12 hours, I tasted it after only one hour and thought it was spicy enough for me. The longer you let it sit (and the more jalapeno you use), the spicier it will be. If you overdo it, just add some more tequila to dilute it.

Erin's recipe calls for 1 1/2 ounces of the jalapeno tequila, but I decided to cut this back to one ounce and add 1/2 ounce mezcal to play up the smokiness of the pineapple. The final special touch is a teaspoon of vanilla, which really brings all the flavors together. It is so good!

Grilled Pineapple Margarita

1 oz. jalapeno-infused tequila*
1/2 oz. mezcal
1/2 oz. triple sec
2 slices grilled pineapple** (I used a little less)
1 1/2 oz. lime juice
1 oz. agave nectar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

*For jalapeno-infused tequila: Slice jalapeno and combine with tequila blanco. Use roughly one jalapeno pepper per cup of tequila. Let the tequila infuse until it's spicy enough for your taste, 1-12 hours. Strain to remove jalapeno slices.

**For grilled pineapple: Slice fresh pineapple into 1-inch thick rings. Remove the rind, and the core if desired (I removed the core after they'd cooked). Preheat a grill to medium-high. Grill pineapple slices for 4-5 minutes each side, until pineapple is softened and has browned grill marks. Let cool and store in the refrigerator until you're ready to make your cocktail.

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve to remove pineapple pieces. Erin suggests adding as much as 3/4 cup water in the blender to reduce the thickness of the liquid; I omitted it water, but did find it difficult to strain the mixture. Pour the strained cocktail into a shaker and shake with ice until well chilled. Coat the rim of a rocks glass with salt and fill the glass with crushed ice. Strain the cocktail into the prepared glass. Garnish with a piece of grilled pineapple.

Recipe adapted from Platings & Pairings.