Nothing says summer like watermelon.

Okay, well maybe ripe tomatoes do, and cold gazpacho, and 8PM sunsets. But I digress. This watermelon juice from scratch tastes like a glass of summer and this labor day weekend, you’ll find me making a big batch and having it sans-alcohol first thing in the morning, and tinged with tequila come evening.

Watermelon Raspberry Juice with Ginger, Lime & Cucumber

Renders roughly 32 oz. juice

¼ of a whole watermelon
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeds removed and cubed
1 knob fresh ginger, roughly 2 inches
10 raspberries, fresh or frozen
2-3 limes
Handful fresh mint

To make this juice, simply run all ingredients though a professional juicer, if you have one. If not, use a blender or food processor and you can manually strain out pulp, which is only slightly laborious, but totally worth it.

Remove watermelon flesh from rind and dice into pieces that will fit into the body of your blender or food processor. Blend and then, over a large bowl, strain through a very fine mesh strainer, using a rubber spatula or just the back of a large spoon to press the pulp against the strainer, rendering all of the delicious watermelon juice. Do this a few times — you should be left with just a very small amount of pulp. Toss pulp.

Peel a large cucumber and cut in half long ways, scooping out seeds. Loosely cube remaining cucumber and add to the body of your blender. Remove skin from large knob of ginger and cut into a few pieces. Add a handul of clean, fresh mint and fresh or frozen raspberries.

Blend, and then repeat above process, straining through your fine mesh strainer into the bowl with your watermelon juice, making sure to completely drain the pulp of all liquid before tossing.

Add juice of 2-3 limes, depending on your preference and amount of juice your limes render.

Adjust to taste, adding more ginger, mint or lime as you see fit.

Enjoy solo over lots of ice with muddled mint and raspberry, or with the addition of tequila, or your spirit of choice. Cheers!