Summer cocktail: Watermelon gin lemonade

Happy 4th, everybody! To celebrate, here's a recipe for a summery cocktail we whipped up recently. We sipped these while watching Wet Hot American Summer (Amy Poehler! Bradley Cooper! So many hilarious and now-famous folks).

You need:

-2 cups watermelon juice (from about 5-6 c. of cubed watermelon)

-juice of 1 lemon (plus an extra lemon for wedges, if you like)

- 2 tblspns. sugar

-1 c. gin

-tonic water

-crushed ice

Cube your watermelon and run it in a blender until it becomes juice. There will be a little pulp, so be sure to strain the juice. Pour 2 cups of strained juice into a cocktail shaker. Add the lemon juice, sugar, and gin to the cocktail shaker. Mix well.

Fill a glass with crushed ice, then add the cocktail mixture until the glass is about 3/4 full. Top the glass off with tonic for fizz.

[Full disclosure: Making the watermelon juice is kind of a pain. I had to run several batches of watermelon cubes because our blender couldn't handle much at once. But if you have an overabundance of watermelon, as we did, it is truly a cool and tasty way to use it.]

Credit: Recipe adapted from this watermelon gin and tonic idea, only I discovered we had no limes, and added lemon instead.