June Watermelon

Watermelon is almost entirely water, and its flavour lives in aroma compounds so fragile that boiling destroys them. That is why no distillation can carry it: the fruit has to arrive as a natural aroma rather than as a distillate, and the recipe says so plainly. G'Vine builds this bottling on the grape spirit its whole range rests on, at 37.5%.

Citrus · Floral · Fruity

Grape is the reason a fruit this delicate has anywhere to sit. A grape-based spirit is naturally rounder and softer than a grain spirit, with less of the sharp alcoholic edge that would cut straight through a melon note, and the texture it provides is the recipe's real foundation. Vine flower works above it, floral and faintly green, and it belongs to the same plant as the base, which gives the aroma an unusual coherence. The watermelon then arrives on top: ripe, juicy, sweet in the way summer fruit is sweet rather than the way sugar is. Citrus peel keeps a thread of brightness running underneath so the fruit never sits flat, and juniper stays discreet but present, holding just enough structure to keep the whole thing from becoming a cordialCordialA concentrated syrup of fruit (often lime) and sugar, made to be topped up.Glossary.

Lightness is the design brief and the serving follows from it. Tonic or plain sparkling water both work, over all the ice a glass will hold, with fresh fruit rather than a peel as garnish. A wedge of watermelon is the obvious move and it is the right one. At 37.5% it also makes a genuinely low-strength summer drink without anything being taken out. Making a melon taste like a melon in alcohol is harder than it sounds. Nearly every attempt lands on boiled sweets instead, and staying on the right side of that line is what the low strength and the grape base are both for. It closes fruity, floral and light.