The "Horned Melon" - Kiwano Martini

(The Kiwano Martini. It looks, and tastes, somewhat strange.)

This past week I got a little bit creative in my home kitchen, and put together a Kiwano Martini. It was a fairly difficult task, to say the least, considering I didn't know the best way to extract the juice from the Kiwano, or to separate the flesh from the seeds. I did manage to put something together, however.

Speaking of Kiwano, let's address five of the W's (okay, four W's and one H); what is it, where is it from, why bother, who named it, and how do you use it?

(This is a Kiwano. Shocking, isn't it?)

Starting with 'what'. The Kiwano is a fruit, related to the cucumber. It looks quite a bit different though. It has waxy orange skin covered in horns. Don't worry though, the horns are not sharp. As for 'where', the Kiwano is an African fruit. It's fairly interesting, being that it's the only source of water during the dry seasons in the Kalahari desert. "Why bother"? Well, why bother with anything? It's different! Not the most typical of ingredients to be used in cocktailing. But... "who" named it? It doesn't exactly have an African name, does it? The African name actually translates to 'horned melon' or 'horned cucumber' (cucumber is related to melons, don't you know!) The Kiwis (people from New Zealand) and Australians gave it this name. At some point they decided to start growing it in their own Oceanic part of the world, and the result was a name change to something that sounds a bit more like it's from that part of the world. "How" do you use it? That's a tough one actually... I haven't quite figured that one out yet. It's quite difficult to extract juice from the flesh. I tried squeezing it, and while that got most of the seeds out, some still remained, and I was still stuck with a gel-like flesh. One may try steaming it to extract the juice; I'm sure I'll give that a try eventually, as my hand squeezing method only extracted one ounce of juice from a half of a Kiwano. Another somewhat obvious solution may be to puree it.

So here's the recipe I concocted

• 1 oz of Zu Bison Grass Vodka
• 1 oz of Kiwano Juice
• 3 drops of Lemon Juice
• 2 dashes of Lavender Bitters
• A pinch of cracked or muddled Rosemary
• 1 triangle shaped peel of Kiwano skin

Steps:

1. Mix all ingredients (except peel) in a shaker full of ice.
2. Shake or stir (I prefer stirred).
3. Pour in a chilled Martini glass.
4. Garnish with Kiwano peel.

The recipe is fairly good. The vodka taste is noticeable, as well as wheat-like Bison Grass taste in the Zu. The vodka is the prominent flavor, but the taste of cucumber is obvious as well; the few drops of lemon help lift and complement the neutral flavor of cucumber. It has a floral, garden-like aroma, thanks to the mix of bitters, bison grass, rosemary and Kiwano. It's not sweet at all; bitter-sour is the taste combination you'll be expecting with this one. If you're not one to enjoy the taste of spirits then feel free to add a bit of simple syrup.