[1] Wonder Melon watermelon juice in two flavors (all photos © Wonder Melon).

[2] Enjoy a glass of straight juice, or blended into a smoothie.

[3] Make Watermelon Margaritas (photo from Wonder Melon | Facebook).

Some 10 years ago, a California company called Sundia sold the most delicious pure watermelon juice.

Alas, they got out of the juice business, and we lost our favorite juice.

It’s quite time-consuming to juice a watermelon at home, so since then we’ve tried every watermelon juice and blend we came across. Nothing made the grade.

Finally, Wonder Melon: two varieties of watermelon juice blends: Watermelon Cucumber Basil and Watermelon Lemon Cayenne.

The cold pressed juices are are refreshing drunk plain, in smoothies or cocktails. They are:

 
WATERMELON CUCUMBER BASIL WONDER MELON

This juice is expertly blended with Watermelon Juice, Lemon Juice, Apple Juice, Cucumber Juice, and Basil for an incredibly refreshing juice that’s perfectly sweet with a touch of tartness and light herbaceous. With only 80 calories a bottle, it’s a drink you can’t resist.

Food Trivia: Cucumbers and watermelons are first cousins.

Both are from the binomial order Cucurbitales and family Cucurbitaceae, differing only at the genus level.

That’s why if you eat the white portion of watermelon rind, it tastes just like cucumber.
 
WATERMELON LEMON CAYENNE WONDER MELON

A touch of tartness from lemon and hint of heat from cayenne pepper, the juice has just 4 ingredients: watermelon juice, lemon juice, apple juice and a dash of cayenne. An 8.45-ounce bottle has 100 calories.

There’s a store locator on the website.

You can purchase Wonder Melon on Amazon.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF WATERMELON

Watermelon, Citrullus lanatus, is believed to have originated in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. An ancestor of the modern watermelon still grows there.

That ancestor is not tasty at all: bitter and with many seeds. It was cultivated for the water inside, to quench thirst in the desert.

Mutations over thousands of years of cultivations created the sweet flesh we enjoy today.

Watermelons are about 92% water—that’s how they got their name. In ancient times, travelers carried watermelons as a replacement for water—a watermelon canteen, as it were.

Watermelon has been cultivated as early as 2000 B.C.E. The first recorded watermelon harvest occurred nearly 5,000 years ago in Egypt. Watermelon seeds have been found in the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen (King Tut).

Here’s more of the watermelon’s history.

Check out watermelon nutrition.