Grilled Boozy Watermelon

More About This Recipe

• It's hard to believe that Labor Day is just around the corner!
  
  Yes, friends, summer is almost over. Now before you get a case of the sads, Team Tablespoon has your back. To celebrate the end of our fave season, the team got together to conjure up the most awesome concoction yet to hit your grill: boozy fruit. Or, more specifically, Grilled Boozy Watermelon.
  
  To be honest, we didn't magically arrive at our final product the first time around. There was quite a bit of experimentation goin' on.
  
  Settled in a cabin deep in the woods, far from civilization, the first task was to determine the best fruit and booze pairings that fit the summer roll out. The players: watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, a few sprigs of mint, Midori and Rum. The soda was used for the cocktail portion of the experiment (more on that later).
  
  We used a personal sized watermelon (since they're pretty easy to find year 'round) and cut that up into 1" thick triangles.
  
  Next, we decided to up the cuteness factor by using a melon baller  to cut up 1/2 of the cantaloupe.
  
  And added even more "adorbs" by cutting 1/2 of the honeydew melon into squares.
  
  Finally, our fruit was ready for a refreshing booze bath.
  
  Since Midori is a melon liqueur, it only made sense to throw the cantaloupe and honeydew into the same gallon sized Ziploc bag along with 1 cup of the green goodness. For the watermelon, rum was the popular choice among the crew. We also had a little more than expected, so we divided it up into two gallon sized bags and added a 1/2 bottle of rum to each.
  
  Finally, we added a few roughly torn mint leaves to all the bags and then left them to marinate. Note on marinating: we let ours sit for about 15 minutes in the fridge and they were "no-joke-BOO-ZY." So, depending on your party peeps' tolerance levels, you'll want to check it every so often to make sure it doesn't get too out of control.
  
  While the watermelon slices were good to go on their own, we thought it would be cute to take full advantage of our brilliant geometric-shaped melon and skewer them. We used bamboo skewers that we soaked in water while the fruit was marinating so that they were ready to go when we were.
  
  Then we were cooking with gas! The whole grilling process didn't take very long. About 3 minutes on each side gave the fruit really nice grill marks.
  
  While the cantaloupe and honeydew skewers turned out O.K., it was really the watermelon that stole the show. Mmmm, pretty!
  
  The final piece of our party perfection was to make a cocktail using the sweet, sweet nectar created by the marinating juice. We used one part juice (right from the fruit bag!) to two parts soda. Both juices were delicious companions to their grilled boozy fruit counterparts.
  
  From our team to your party, here's wishing you a great Labor Day. Cheers!