Meet Watermelon Mash — The Old-School Drink That Starts In A Bucket

With the advent of summer, the minds of many will turn to that glorious and quintessential summer fruit, the watermelon. While there are countless ways of enjoying this inimitable and succulent treat of nature (check out our list of 25 watermelon recipes for peak summer freshness for proof), there is one you may be unfamiliar with. There may be plenty of refreshing cocktails that feature watermelon as an ingredient, but some prefer the fruit to make watermelon mash — a beverage that starts its life in a bucket, and one that carries a distant connection to the Prohibition era.

Many of America's home-distillers have utilized watermelon to make a unique (albeit questionably legal) moonshine via pot-distilling (which requires a still). However, several videos on YouTube and TikTok from the account @Prohibition_1920 demonstrate how to make a watermelon mash according to a markedly different method known as freeze-distillation. This recipe begins with adding 8 pounds of sugar to a bucket, followed by the scooped-out flesh of a bunch of fresh watermelons. After this is topped off with hot water, the mixture is thoroughly blended, then sprinkled with yeast. Thus far, this method will be familiar to anyone who has ever homebrewed their own booze.

It's the next step that will give the watermelon mash its potency, however. After the mixture has been left to ferment, it is sieved of any remaining watermelon chunks, then transferred to large plastic jugs and put in the freezer. As alcohol freezes at a lower temperature than water, when the jugs are removed, a stronger and more concentrated spirit can be decanted, while the frozen water remains solid. The result will be watermelon mash. 

The link between watermelon mash and the devastating Prohibition era is somewhat indirect. While enterprising drinkers during this period did resort to many ways of making alcohol, ranging from the ingenious to the outright dangerous, there appears to be little evidence this specific beverage was produced or enjoyed during Prohibition (though hollowed-out watermelons were among the ways stealthy tipplers could covertly transport illegal liquor). However, the method used to make watermelon mash was definitely practiced while the 18th Amendment was in force, as it is exactly the same as that used in the manufacture of the spirit applejack. 

For those unfamiliar with it, applejack is arguably the oldest spirit in America, being produced as early as the late 1600s by New England settlers, who converted hard cider into something more potent. The process for making applejack simply employs apples rather than watermelons, and thanks to the ease of its manufacture, it became prevalent during Prohibition — so much so that thousands of acres of American orchards were destroyed by the authorities to prevent their fruits from being used in the production of illicit hooch. The sad result was the loss of numerous apple varieties.

We should emphasize that, throughout the United States and in many other countries, home-distilling alcohol by any method is very, very illegal, and Tasting Table would therefore strongly advise against it for reasons of safety. If you would like to know specifically what not to do to avoid running afoul of the law, you'll find many other YouTube videos on making this kind of alcohol, which you are free to peruse — purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity, of course.