Boating and Punch

du Bois
Miami Beach

Sunday was unusually warm here on The Beach, so when dear JS called with an invitation to go on an afternoon sailing trip, I took my boater out of it's hat box, slipped on my squashed-heeled canvas shoes, and dashed. I grabbed a carton of strawberries, two mangos, and a bottle of Grey Goose that I had purchased at the farmers' market earlier. We boarded on the bay side of the island at 15th Street at 12:30 PM and shortly thereafter headed north.

There is never any shortage of liquor on JS's boat, but we did want to make up something special; the ladies on board were in a festive mood. JS steered us to sea along one of the ubiquitous canals that dot the barrier islands here. Crossing through the 20th Street canal, we spotted a Publix supermarket and came to a halt. Miami is one of the few places you can pull a boat up to a supermarket and go shopping. We jumped off and quickly picked up a large watermelon, containers of orange, pineapple, cranberry, and passion fruit juice, two oranges and some club soda. I am well-known for being punch-happy and we were now ready to create the ideal Boating Punch. We took the watermelon and sliced it in half length-wise. A machete is perfect for this, but--alas--we settled for a chef's knife. We set one half aside for slicing later and scooped out the other. You don't really want to scoop everything as a little fruit adds to the taste. Quickly put, we emptied the containers of juice into the watermelon shell, added two bottles of club soda (ginger ale does nicely, too), threw in sliced oranges, cubed mango, and the strawberries. Oh, yes, the 1.5 liter of Grey Goose and a jigger of Cointreau topped this off quite nicely.

Punches are a common denominator of any event and, of course, there was no worry about breaking the bowl. In fact, you can just toss the bowl overboard and let the fishes feed on the liquor-soaked rind. They need a lift, too.