Official Cocktail of the USTA and The US Open Tennis Championship
For the last 19 years I have watched the unbridled joy of millions of people enjoying their first Honey Deuce cocktail at the US Open. Social media is chock full of people making their own iterations at home during US Open Watch Parties. So, I thought I would set the record straight on the creation of the Honey Deuce and offer some of the original recipes that did not make the cut, and a few side bars!
As reported in the NY Times. The Honey Deuce, the signature drink of the US Open, is back for this year’s tournament at $23 a pop, and that price is not slowing down sales. One drink is sold every 1.5 seconds, according to Front Office Sports. Last year, 556,782 Honey Deuces were sold at the US Open, making $12.8 million. Both numbers are expected to increase this year, if the Open’s supply order is anything to go by.
The 2025 cocktails require 7,700 cases of King of the West honeydew melons from which the 2.3 million balls will be formed—by a “small group” of Baldor Specialty Foods employees, the NYT reports, as there is no industrial melon baller machine. That’s up from 1.9 million melon balls last year.
Let’s travel back to 2006 where I had, simply put…one of the best gigs on the planet…working as the first Grey Goose Brand Ambassador. In that role, and among other responsibilities, I worked on many seasonal and event-based signature cocktails for the brand. Grey Goose was becoming a beverage sponsor of the US Open and asked me to create a signature cocktail. We had a meeting with the brand managers and others to discuss the drink and then I left to head home and begin working. There were only two pre-requisites; 1) I had to use Grey Goose Original Vodka as the base and 2) The previous “signature” cocktail sold (I believe) 10,000 drinks the previous year…we had to beat that number. I was both confident and very, very stoked.
You see I’ve had an interesting history with the US Open. I love going to the Tennis Center and have attended the US Open Tennis Championship many times over the years. In 1990 I was a young manager at the Gotham Bar and Grill on 12th street in Manhattan. We were coming off a pretty killer NY Times Three-star review and many of the elite players came to dinner between their matches in the early rounds. Our great chef Alfred Portale was an awesome tennis player in his own right, and we were all stoked to see so many elite athletes having dinner. Unfortunately, many of those same elite players including Martina Navratilova, lost their next match. We became somewhat despondent that “the Gotham Jinx” would become a thing. However, the spell was broken when then 19 year old Pete Sampras had dinner and two days later defeated Andre Agassi in straight sets…phew!
My personal favorite Open was in 1996 when my good friend Mark Lassi and I played hooky form work and went to the Open for an afternoon session. It was pretty special walking into Flushing Meadows and watching all the up and comers on the various courts. When we finally got to our seats in the main stage, we were thrilled to watch Venus and Serena Williams playing an amazing doubles match. Add some great food from my good friend, then Executive Chef – now CEO – of Restaurant Assoicates, Ed Brown, wash it down with a few drinks and well, life was pretty darn good!
So, let’s take one more step back in time to the summer of 1969. (cue Brian Adams here!) On Sundays in the heat of summer we might forgo our usual Italian American pasta and Sunday gravy for Honeydew Melon and prosciutto with a big tomato and onion salad…yum. During those dog days of summer my mother would make one of my favorite desserts, a simple bowl of blackberries doused with some sugar and a generous splash of orange juice. The simplicity of berries picked at the peak of ripeness and contrasted with the bright acid and citrus was just fantastic. Well…The happy memories linger to this day.
After our 2006 Grey Goose brand team meeting about the US Open Signature cocktail, I headed home to my house in Hampton Bays, LI. Along the way I stopped at a farm stand to pick up some ingredients for dinner. I was having guests for the weekend and wanted to harness the local bounty for an epic meal with great cocktails to start, and local striped bass and sweet corn on the grill. Included in that shop were honeydew melons, blackberries and rosemary for a summer dessert salad that I make. The “salad,” reminiscent of my mother’s summer dessert, includes honeydew melon balls, blackberries, rosemary-citrus syrup, a splash of vodka, and topped with orange sherbert. While making the melon balls, lightning struck – the melon balls looked just like tennis balls! I knew right then and there these were the non-negotiable garnish for whatever drink we finally ended up with!
I added one more non-negotiable for the cocktail. The US Open is held in the absolute heat and heavy humidity of late summer in NYC. Therefore, it needed to be lighter, more thirst quenching and sessionable. My first iterations of the cocktail were more complex and used the same ingredients as in my summer salad…Grey Goose Original Vodka, homemade rosemary-citrus syrup, fresh squeezed lemon juice served in a tall glass, topped with seltzer, garnished with the melon balls and drizzled with blackberry cordial.
We knew that the first iterations were too complex for a large format, high volume, outdoor event, and bartenders who could be dealing with thousands of patrons each shift. While blackberry liqueurs are common, the premium version I was using was both expensive and hard to find. So, we changed to a premium raspberry liqueur that was more readily available. I also cut back on the complexity, and we all happily settled on the current recipe. The one non-negotiable was the honeydew melon balls.
My whole cocktail career was about using garnishes that were not JUST pretty to look at but also added to the intrinsics of the cocktail. Think homemade cocktail onions for a Gibson or house made cherries for your Manhattan. The melon balls are more than fun to look at, they bring a sense of joy and
The first year the drink was served, I believe, 30,000 Honey Deuce were sold. Far outpacing whatever the previous year’s cocktail sold. From there it went viral…even in the pre-Instagram days! People would walk out of the bar holding the signature cup and giggling over the melon balls and then the next person had to have one! Once social media took hold, a few years later, and pictures were posted all over Facebook, Instagram and Twitter the drink sales skyrocketed from there.
Now the signature cups are being resold on eBay for multiples! The secondary market for the Honey Deuce collectible cups is quite robust! But most importantly the drink is delicious, very thirst quenching and refreshing on a hot summer day in the sun at the Open.
While I am still friends with many people at Grey Goose and Parent Company Bacardi USA, I have not had a formal relationship with the brand in about 10 years…aside from drinking several Grey Goose Martinis each week and hosting an annual US Open Finals party at my house…serving Honey Deuces of course! So, I have not had a hand in the canned products, or other merchandise, that are out now. Many bars have chosen to make their own spin on the deuce, something I find quite flattering. My personal favorite is to make the honey deuce in a large glass and top it with your favorite style of sparkling wine. It becomes a bit drier and fizzy yet still refreshing and thirst quenching.
For me the Honey Deuce reaching such an iconic status and becoming such a cultural phenomenon has been super fun and exciting. I have friends texting and emailing every day with their pictures from the Open and laugh as I hear how many signature cups people are collecting. Gotta love it. Watching the pictures flow on Instagram has been amazing. I love seeing people hoisting the melon balls and laughing as they take selfies! Hearing the number of cocktails sold each year has me simply flabbergasted. In short, I love the Honey Deuce, proud to have been its creator, and proud to have been part of the amazing Grey Goose team that has helped shepherd this drink to cultural icon status!
Honey Deuce
Created by Nick Mautone
The Official Drink of the USTA and The US Open Tennis Championship
Ingredients:
1 ¼ oz Grey Goose original Vodka
½ oz Chambord or other premium raspberry liqueur
3 oz Fresh Victor Lemon Sour or your favorite fresh lemonade
Garnish:
3 Honeydew Melon Balls speared on an olive pick
Glassware:
Highball Glass
Recipe:
Fill a highball glass with ice. Add Grey Goose Original Vodka and lemonade. Drizzle Chambord over the top. Garnish with 3 melon balls speared on an olive pick.
Variations:
- Rim the glass with Rosemary Salt and Sugar for sweet, tart, salty drink.
- Build the drink in a blender and blend until smooth and serve ice cold and frozen.
- Substitute 1 oz of rosemary syrup and 2 oz of fresh lemon juice for the lemonade.
Honey Deuce – Mocktail
Ingredients:
¾ oz Fruitfast Raspberry Juice Concentrate or other reb berry syrup
5 oz Fresh Victor Lemon Sour or your favorite fresh lemonade
Garnish:
3 Honeydew Melon Balls speared on an olive pick
Glassware:
Highball Glass
Recipe:
Fill a highball glass with ice. Add Fresh Victor Lemon Sour. Drizzle syrup over the top. Garnish with 3 melon balls speared on an olive pick.
Variations:
- Rim the glass with Rosemary Salt and Sugar for sweet, tart, salty drink.
- Build the drink in a blender and blend until smooth and serve ice cold and frozen.
- Substitute 1 oz of rosemary syrup and 2 oz of fresh lemon juice for the lemonade.
30-Love
Version 1 of the Honey Deuce
Ingredients:
2 oz Grey Goose original Vodka
½ oz Echte Kroatzebeere Blackberry Liqueur or other premium blackberry liqueur
2 oz Fresh Victor Lemon Sour or fresh lemon juice
1 oz Raft Syrups – Rosemary Citrus Syrup
Optional 2 oz of Seltzer
Garnish:
3 Honeydew Melon Balls speared on an olive pick
Glassware:
Highball Glass
Recipe:
Add Grey Goose, lemon juice and citrus syrup to cocktail shake, add ice and shake vigorously. Fill a highball glass with ice. Strain contents of shaker into the glass and drizzle blackberry liqueur over the top. Garnish with 3 melon balls speared on an olive pick.
Variations:
- Rim the glass with Rosemary Salt and Sugar for sweet, tart, salty drink.
- Build the drink in a blender and blend until smooth and serve ice cold and frozen.
- Substitute sparkling wine for seltzer and serve in a bulb wine glass.
Courtside
An original version of this drink was a runner up to what became The Honey Deuce. I happen to think it is a killer cocktail and have installed it on several menus around the country. I have often switched it from vodka to gin, but it is equally great with rum, tequila or mezcal. It became a signature cocktail of Bar 65 at the Rainbow Room (especially on the 65th floor terrace during the summer!)
Ingredients
2 oz Grey Goose Vodka
½ oz St Germain Elderflower
½ oz Crème De Violette
2 oz Fresh Victor – Mexican Lime & Agave or 1 oz each of simple syrup and fresh lime juice
Dash of Lavender Bitters
Top with Sparkling Wine
Garnish: Honeydew Melon Balls
Glassware: Coupe
Directions:
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake vigorously until the outside of the shaker is frosted and beaded with sweat. Strain into Coupe Glass, top with sparkling wine and garnish.
Follow Nick @nickmautone
