Everything I read on research into watermelon wine or brandy people mentioned to not bother and that it never turns out. Decided to buy and blend 6 watermelons and give it a shot anyways. I must say, my apple pie brandy was my go to crowd pleaser, but this? This easily overtook it! (Aside from the 3 hours of cutting watermelons, that was a pain)
I’m calling it toddermelon, in honor of a buddy of mine who passed. If anyone wants to recreate this, number one tip (and this will be weird for home brewers) do not heat or boil it at all! I made a starter with half a watermelon and a packet of Cote des Blancs. From there I sliced up and blended 5 watermelons, put it into a BIAB bag and strained out as much as I could. Added 8? Pounds of sugar I inverted and water to bring it up to 5 gallons. Tossed in my starter and 2 extra packs of yeast to be safe (remember, no boiling) and let it ferment. In the mean time I also cut the last of 6 watermelons up and filled a 16oz jar with them and sugar to make a watermelon syrup while dehydrating the rest of the melon. Once it was done fermenting the liquor fairies took care of the distilling, proofed it down using my watermelon syrup and let the dehydrated melon sit in it for 4 days before straining it out. All in all I got 2 liters of the most delicious watermelon brandy I’ve ever had (everything else tastes artificial)
Dang it, when you said liquor fairies I was hoping it was a service you could buy to have a company distill for you.
I mean I don’t condone breaking the law but also in the US if you don’t sell it the ATF doesn’t generally care if some liquor fairies happen to distill something. There’s plenty of legal reasons to have a still too, for example my clothes steamer calls for only distilled water ;)
Ahahaha I’m not against it, I just haven’t broken into distilling yet. And by distilling I mean wood alcohol for fuel purposes, of course.
Thanks for the recipe though, it sounds great.
For sure! Honestly even as a “wine” (it finished fermenting in a week) it tasted good, but it does require back sweetening. Without any sugar watermelon tastes like cucumber. Before the liquor fairies got their hands on it I added a small bit of simple syrup into a small glass of it and it still tasted awesome. I’m not sure how well the flavor would hold over time though, but with my quick test, it turned out great. I did ferment it rather warm, to get some esters to give it some sweetness to it, but it did require backsweetening to get it to taste right.