Watermelon, berries and orange mocktail

Super delicious and stunning mocktail, great for your bbq party or a hot summer picnic. all natural colors makes it so healthy and refreshing.

Lantana is the most unassuming flowers that you can find, but it is one of my favorites, I just love the colors. It is a wild flower, almost a weed in a tropical land like India. I remember it was everywhere when I was growing up, street corners,  by a neglected fence, ...no one really cared for it. I just loved the bright little flowers against the deep  green leaves and the multiple colors that it would have in one flower. At that time, it was not a well respected landscape annual and it was wasted in dingy corners.

A few years ago I saw it in on one the local nurseries in the US and I was so excited to bring it home. It brought back so many memories of childhood. When I was planning my lantana this year , I thought of the colors, the deep fuchsia, the orange and a hint of pink, I wanted to create a drink that resembled these colors. After a bit of thinking and experimenting, I came up with watermelon, berries and orange mocktail. All colors in the drink are natural, I almost never use artificial colors. I really worked on the gradation of color in the drink and loved the effect.

If you really do not care for the layering of colors, just mix it up and it's still a beautiful deep orange-fuchsia mix. I'll stop telling you that it is a picture heavy post, I almost always go overboard and there is no point of stating it, so this post is no exception. :)

 Recipe

1 cup berries - blended
1 inch ginger
1/4 cup sugar

Boil the berry puree in sugar. Make sure when you blend the berries you add the ginger too.  It should be a bit thick.

Cool, then refrigerate. It should be cold when you serve.

Make water melon juice in a blender and strain, add 1/2 cup of orange juice. Chill - this should be about 3 cups. The yellow orange juice will give the color to the watermelon juice, if the watermelon is a bright color, you can skip the orange juice. ( Mine was a dull pink)

Add the berry juice to fill almost half the glass, add ice, then pour the watermelon juice.

Garnish with some mint, orange slices or both.

Have a fantastic week !!