This Watermelon Crush cocktail is so perfect for warm weather sipping. It gets its gorgeous color and amazing flavor from fresh watermelon juice.
Crush cocktails are super popular in the DMV area of the United States. Orange Crush is the OG variety, but you can find crushes in a number of flavors. Check out my Key Lime Pie Crush, Grapefruit Crush, and Orange Creamsicle Crush for a few examples.
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🌟 Why You'll Love This Recipe
It's made with fresh ingredients. Fresh juices make for the most delicious drinks.
It tastes great. It's sweet, a little tart, and fizzy. In short, it's perfection.
It's gorgeous. I mean, look at that color! 😍
💭 What is a Watermelon Crush?
According to Punch, a Crush cocktail gets its name from "the swift yanking of an industrial press juicer that flattens fresh orange halves, sending frothy OJ plummeting into a pint glass filled with ice, vodka and triple sec." As the description may lead you to realize, orange is the original flavor.
At its most basic, a Crush is made up of vodka (sometimes plain, sometimes flavored), triple sec (sometimes), fresh fruit juice, and crushed ice. Crushes come in a wide variety of flavors: grapefruit, lemonade, pineapple, orange creamsicle, key lime pie... the list goes on. Basically, if you can dream, you can crush it.
A Watermelon Crush, as you might guess, is made with fresh watermelon juice. It's a really delicious, beautiful (look at the color!) variation on the classic Crush.
📝 Ingredients
You only need a handful of ingredients to make this cocktail. They're pictured and described below. Let's go through them!
- Watermelon (juice): I highly recommend making your own watermelon juice. The bottled stuff that you can buy in the store just isn't the same. All you need to do is take some fresh watermelon and run it through a food processor or blender, then strain out the solids. That's it! You've made fresh watermelon juice!
- Lime juice: Freshly squeezed, please!
- Vodka: Crushes are vodka-based cocktails. I used a plain vodka, but you could use watermelon-flavored vodka if you have some and that's your jam. You don't have to use anything too too spendy, but make sure that you like the vodka that you're using.
- Lemon lime soda: Use your favorite lemon lime soda. As you can see in the photo, I went with Sprite.
👩🏻🍳 How to make a Watermelon Crush
A Crush cocktail gets built right in your glass. First, you'll want to start out with a tall glass filled with crushed ice.
Next, add the watermelon juice, lime juice, and vodka to the glass.
After that, top everything off with lemon lime soda.
Next, make sure to give the drink a gentle stir with a bar spoon. And that's it! You can garnish your drink with fresh mint and/or some fresh watermelon, if you're feeling fancy.
🔗 More Crush cocktails
I have a few more Crush cocktails on this site, too! You can click on any of the photos below to be taken to the recipe.
🔗 More vodka cocktail recipes
Looking for more cocktails made with vodka? Click on the photos below to go straight to other delicious vodka cocktails on this site.
❓ FAQs
It's a cocktail made up of vodka, triple sec (sometimes), fresh fruit juice, and crushed ice. It originates in the DMV area (where Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia meet).
I highly recommend it. Fresh juice is going to give you the best flavor. If you have to, you can use a store bought watermelon juice.
Since it gets built in the glass, it's a little hard to batch this drink. However, you can totally make a big batch of fresh watermelon juice to make the assembly process go quickly when making more than one drink.
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✨ Recipe
Watermelon Crush
Ingredients
- 2 ounces watermelon juice see notes
- ½ ounce lime juice
- 1.5 ounces vodka
- 3 ounces lemon lime soda
- fresh mint and/or fresh watermelon for garnish
Instructions
- Add the watermelon juice, lime juice, and vodka to a tall glass filled with crushed ice.
- Top with lemon lime soda.
- Give everything a gentle stir with a bar spoon.
- Garnish with fresh mint and/or fresh watermelon, if desired.
Notes
- To make fresh watermelon juice, add cubed fresh watermelon to a blender or food processor. Blend/process until smooth. Strain the pureed watermelon through a fine mesh strainer. Store the watermelon juice in the fridge (should keep for a few days). As the juice sits, it will separate a bit. Just give everything a stir when you're ready to use it.
Nutrition
Disclaimer: Nutritional information is a generated estimate and is not guaranteed to be accurate.
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Rachel B
Delicious! Made myself this recipe tonight and made my kiddo mocktails omitting the vodka! Super tasty!! Would like to try with white rum and gin!
Lauren Pacek
I think rum or gin would be great in this drink, too! I'm so glad that you liked it!!