Spiked Agua Fresca: A Perfect Summer Drink

48 Comments / By Stephanie / June 19, 2019

In the heat of the summer, watermelon is a great fruit to enjoy. Blend some up with mint and rum to make Spiked Agua Fresca!

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This week is officially the First Day of Summer. But here in South Texas, it’s been summer since the beginning of May. We’ve been trying to find ways to cool ourselves off while we enjoy the outdoors. We enjoy fresh drinks such as strawberry mojitos, so decided to try one I’d heard of before called agua fresca.

One of our favorite fruits in the summer is watermelon. We often buy a whole melon and cut it up to munch on for the next few days. It’s perfect for when the boys come in from playing outside since it’s cool and refreshing. Plus will help keep them hydrated since watermelon is 91% water.

Now and then we have more watermelon than we can eat. I don’t like it when it’s too hard, but also don’t like it to get squishy. There are about one or two days of optimal watermelon eating for me. The boys will eat it when it isn’t quite as ripe, but it still often leaves us with extra.

And I’ve mentioned before in my updates about the garden that we have an overabundance of mint leaves and have been searching for something to make with it. We like to make mojitos, but those take a few ingredients that we don’t always have in the pantry unless we plan on it.

So one evening recently, Justin started looking for ideas to use both the watermelon and mint. I told him to search for agua fresca. We had everything and decided to give it a try. The boys were at my in-laws for the night so we wanted an adult drink since we were “off duty”.

So we added a bit of rum to the drink, and it was delicious. And dangerous. I couldn’t taste the rum at all in the drink, but I could feel it a little bit later!

Step by Step

This drink is very easy to make, as long as you have a blender, you can have some spiked agua fresca. All of the ingredients are tossed in a blender, pureed until smooth, and served in a cup over ice.

To make regular agua fresca, you want about 5 cups of watermelon, without the seeds, chopped into pieces that will blend well. The pieces don’t have to be uniform in size, just small enough to fit in your blender. Add in 1/8 cup of mint leaves, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1/8 cup of fresh lime juice. Then, to spike it, add about 1/4 cup of rum. Of course, if you want it stronger just add more rum or less for a weaker drink.

Once you have blended everything, you’ll want to use a sieve or mesh strainer to pour the drink through so you don’t have chunks of watermelon in your drink. Add 2 cups of water and stir; then your drink is ready to serve! Since it isn’t going to be cold, I suggest serving it over ice or chilling the drink before serving.

Agua fresca drink mix in a mesh strainer over a stainless steel bowl

If you want to get really fancy, add a sprig of mint to garnish the cup, and you could also do a sugar-rim on the cup (which we didn’t do this time).

Spiked Agua Fresca in a glass with pitcher behind (vertical)

Recipe

Originally Published On: May 29, 2018

Last Updated On: June 19, 2019