The 2-Ingredient Watermelon Cocktail That'll Refresh You All Summer Long

Summertime calls for a bright, refreshing treat to enjoy while spending time outside in the sun, and there's no fruit as befitting of the job as watermelon. Because watermelon's peak season is between June and August, many will be grabbing the fruit to both hydrate and rejuvenate themselves this summer. However, what these people need to do instead is pair the melon with some prosecco to create a simple, clean cocktail that is simultaneously perfect for the season and as tasty as can be.

The classic watermelon cocktail is a delicious drink choice to make at home and can be made relatively easily with the use of a juicer or blender. Because authentic watermelon juice is hard to come by at the grocery store due to difficulties preserving the fruit juice, you'll want to make a batch of it homemade and add prosecco (roughly one 750-milliliter bottle of the alcohol for every three cups of watermelon juice). These two ingredients are really all you need, but if you want to make the drink a bit more complex you can try adding the juice of a lime to the pitcher. If you want to turn the simple cocktail into a proper watermelon spritz, all it takes is adding some simple syrup on top of the lime juice to get the job done. This will give the drink a sweet and sour profile that pops thanks to its fizzy, carbonated mouthfeel.

Watermelon cocktails rely on fresh, ripe watermelon juice first and foremost, but the sparkling wine you choose for the job can be just as consequential. While prosecco is considered ideal over other variations of sparkling wine, the type of prosecco you get will reap different rewards in the summertime beverage. Generally speaking, brut, dry, and extra dry are the three styles that work best for fruity cocktails like this one, as an overly sweet sparkling wine is unlikely to mesh well with the already sweet fruit juice. If we had to pick one, a classic brut is the best pick for a spritz as it's able to help the fruit juice maintain its ultra-refreshing nature. However, if you aren't making the spritz variation of the drink any of the three styles will work quite well for the job.

Even with this in mind, finding the best bottle of prosecco can be a bit difficult as you don't want to cut corners with a watermelon cocktail. Some cheaper bottles of sparkling wine are known to go flat faster than more expensive ones, and a good level of fizziness is vital to making the best version of the cocktail possible. For this reason, something high-end like the Santa Margherita Brut Valdobbiadene is befitting of the job. However, the price tag isn't the only thing that determines a great bottle of wine. If you're looking for something a bit more affordable that's still high quality, a bottle of Riondo will do just fine. It's an extra dry prosecco that's perfect for a refreshing watermelon cocktail.