Save the Bloody Marys and Cosmos for fall, and make fresh fruit drinks while the sun shines.

One of our favorite summer drinks is the Watermelon Martini. Not only is fresh watermelon delicious in a cocktail, but we love garnishing the drinks with slices of melon.

• Here are six variations on a Watermelon Martini, including a Virgin Watermelontini.
• Find more of our favorite cocktail recipes and product reviews.

The Watermelon Wave includes orange
liqueur. Photo courtesy Gran Gala.

A black rum cake is dense with ground
raisins, prunes and cherries. Photo by
Katharine Pollak | THE NIBBLE.

The most recent are from Caribbean Cake Connoisseurs, owners of the enviable URL Rumcake.com. They make both traditional Caribbean black and brown rum-soaked fruit cakes as well as the pound cake flavors more familiar to Americans.

Rum was first made in the Caribbean in the 17th century, distilled from sugar cane juice or molasses. Authentic Caribbean rum cake most likely originated as a steamed pudding, brought to the Islands by English settlers in the mid-seventeenth century and modified along the way.

While Americans typically enjoy pound cake-style rum cakes flavored with banana, chocolate, vanilla and other flavors, in the Caribbean, the “original” style is a dense fruitcake in brown (brown sugar) and black (with burnt sugar).

Caribbean Cake Connoisseurs provides both styles. The brown and black cakes are available in bundts as well as sheets and layers, which are popular for weddings and other festivities. Bundt pound cakes in four flavors are available in gift tins or individual mini bundts.

• Read the full review.
• Find more of our favorite cakes and cake recipes in our Gourmet Cakes Section.

It’s also beautiful to look at. The tea is brewed with “blooming tea” (also called flowering tea and presentation tea). The beautiful “flowers” made of tea leaves and actual flower petals add attractive decoration to the punch.

The ice cubes in this punch are made of ginger ale and strawberries, so as they melt, they add more flavor to the punch.

• Learn more about blooming tea and get the punch recipe.
• Find more of our favorite teas in our Gourmet Tea Section.

Cool off with this tempting tea punch. Photo
courtesy TeaBeyond.com.

Dice and freeze for a grab-and-go
snack. Photo courtesy Watermelon.org.

Cut melon and stone fruits (peaches, plums, nectarines) into small chunks. Add berries and grapes and freeze in snack- size plastic bags.

When you need a grab-and-go snack, grab a bag of frozen fruit. By the time you get into the car, the fruit will be ready to eat. And it’s just as good when it’s still semi-frozen.

If you’re time-strapped, you can buy cut frozen fruit and add it directly to the snack bags. But if you can, take advantage of the fresh summer fruit bounty.

Find more healthy ideas in our NutriNibbles and Diet Nibbles Sections.

The quick answer: Pickled beets are made with a pickling technique and served chilled or at room temperature. Harvard beets are coated in a warm sauce. The beets are pre-cooked for both preparations.

• Pickled beets are made with sugar, vinegar and pickling spices, and are served chilled. Herbs such as fresh dill and/or parsley can be added after pickling; spices such as cinnamon or allspice can be added to the pickling brine. Sliced onion is often added (and in our opinion, is essential!). Garlic lovers add cloves of garlic; the onion and garlic pickle along with the beets.
• Harvard beets use sugar plus vinegar or lemon juice, but cornstarch or butter is then added to create a thick sauce. The mixture is heated and reduced into a sweet-and-sour sauce called a gastrique (gas-TREEK). Some recipes substitute wine, cider or other alcohol for the vinegar or lemon juice—or add them in addition to the acid. Spices can be used to further flavor the sauce.

Pickled beets are a delicious side. Photo by Cyhel | IST.

Learn how to make a gastrique.

By the way, the story about how Harvard beets got their name is a bit murky. One legend says the dish was devised by a hungry Harvard student. According to the Good Housekeeping Great American Classics Cookbook, the recipe may have developed at the Harwood Tavern in England in the 17th century. A Russian emigre customer moved to Boston in 1846, opened a restaurant named Harwood and served the beets; his accent made the name sound like “Harvard.” A variation called Yale Beets evolved, substituting orange juice for the vinegar and orange zest for the onion.