Recipe 27 - Jones Soda Crushed Melon Clone

Back in the day, before Jones Soda was available at major retailers and their really fun and innovative flavors weren't reserved for short run limited editions, Jones had a number of flavors that were legendary. If not for their flavor, their rarity.  My two favorites were Pink and Crushed Melon.  Pink was later "renamed" Strawberry & Cream, but it never tasted the same after that and shortly thereafter it was retired.  Along with some other black sheep flavors such as BugJuice.com, Pink in it's original form has been officially forgotten by Jones Soda.

Crushed Melon, however, has not suffered such an ill fate.  It is at least still listed on their Retired Products page.  That tells me it was likely more popular and more profitable.  Though the real reason I made a clone recipe is to get me a little closer to Pink as they had a similar aftertaste.  (And it was easier to nail down the flavor.)  So without further ado, here's my version of Jones Soda's Crushed Melon

1 lb diced canteloupe (1/4 average sized melon)
1 lb diced honeydew (1/4 average sized melon)
1 lb diced watermelon (1/8 average sized melon)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb sugar (about 2 cups)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup water

Combine the sugar, water and lemon juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil, let it simmer on medium to medium high heat for 15 minutes.  If the color starts to dark, remove from heat immediately and add in a bit of cold water.
Pour the syrup over the diced melon and use a potato masher to crush it up with the syrup.
Once the melon is crushed up and the syrup is pulpy, run it through a fine-mesh strainer and add the vanilla.
Top the resulting syrup up to 1 gallon with carbonated water.

This syrup turns out a little on the thin side and it does contain a fair amount of pulp.  Mine yielded about 4 cups of syrup which makes the mix ratio about 3:1 carbonated water to syrup.  The pulp makes it fizz up rather easily when you mix it, so keep that in mind when you add this into your Sodastream.