“ALPHYS posted a picture. CUte PIC OF ME RIGHT NOW ^.^” - Alphys, UNDERTALE

Inspiration

Dr. Alphys is the current royal scientist of the Underground. I mean this with all the love in my heart when I say she looks like one of those yellow,  horned, kiwano melons. And that’s the basis for the cocktail. Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful rest of your day!

In all seriousness though, I saw the resemblance and I thought it’d be a cool challenge to make the ingredient work. In addition to her appearance, Alphys’ cocktail also draws inspiration from her personality and locale in the game UNDERTALE. Her laboratory is located in Hotland, an area of the Underground that also contains the CORE. The CORE is seemingly surrounded by lava and is cooled by ice conveyed all the way from Snowdin, another area of the underground. The cool yet hot aspects of the surrounding area were implemented with some home-infused cucumber jalapeño gin.

Workshopping

Horned Melon

If you haven’t seen it before, the horned melon (also called the Kiwano melon) is a yellow melon that could fit in the palm of your hand. You wouldn’t want to keep it there for long though, because the entire fruit is covered in these large but short spikes. Cutting open the fruit, you’d be shocked to find a gelatinous and seed-filled center that has a translucent lime-green color to it. The goo on the inside is totally edible and tastes very similar to a cucumber.

To process the horned melon for mixing in this cocktail, I simply gutted the rind and put it all in a food processor, then strained out the solids. The processing will reveal that horned melon juice has a lot of texture in it and will foam up similarly to pineapple juice. You can eat the solids and even dry out the rind to make tea or a cool garnish that looks like lizard skin. The hollowed-out rind can also be used as a lil’ cup for drinking out of!

Because of the similarity in flavor between this melon and cucumber, it made sense to pair it as such. The flavor of the melon is very muted, so attempting to isolate it as the sole focus of the cocktail was notably difficult. I’m sure there is a technique out there to isolate it further, but as of the time of mixing here, I haven’t exhausted all possibilities.

Cucumber Jalapeño Gin

Much of the workshopping went into perfecting the gin recipe to have that balance between cucumber and spicy jalapeño. Cucumber takes a rather long time to infuse and jalapeño infused incredibly fast! Note that when I say “infuse” here, I mean a cold infusion. A cold infusion is when you combine your spirit and ingredients together at room temperature. The cold infusion is only called cold since it is in contrast to hot infusion, or rather “steeping” like you would a cup of tea.

Since creating this infusion, I’ve had experience with other infusing techniques such as pressurized nitrogen infusion and sous vide. Have you had experience making your own cucumber jalapeño gin? Let me know! I’d love to chat technique with you in our community Discord server so all of the mixologists and bartenders in our community can learn from the conversation.

Before settling upon a home infusion, I did try pairing the flavor of the horned melon juice with some premade gins first. You can absolutely use a London dry here, or whatever you’ve got on hand. One bottle I tried was an American gin that had been finished in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels, and it was awesome, but not fitting for this inspired recipe.

To self-infuse your gin, I’d recommend remembering that jalapeño infuses fast and cucumber infuses slow. My first attempt consisted of cutting up a whole cucumber and half a pepper, and letting the infusion sit for 30 minutes. The gin was way too spicy and I couldn’t taste the cucumber at all! The cucumber-jalapeño gin that I settled with was full of the cucumber flavor and light on the spiciness. Here’s the recipe I used:

• 3 cups (0.7 L) of London Dry Gin

• Cut half a jalapeño pepper (no seeds) and let sit in the gin for no more than 5 minutes!

• Filter out the pepper pieces

• Slice ⅔ of one of those large cucumbers, and let sit in the gin for about a day and a half

• Filter out the solids, and cap off!

Flavor Analysis

A dry and tart drink that has flavors potently reminiscent of cucumber. The dry texture somewhat reminds me of an almond. The end palate is refreshing and has the slightest tingle of jalapeño spiciness.