The Kentucky Derby has the Mint Julep, Wimbledon has Pimm’s Cup and right now, at the U.S. Open in Queens, tennis fans are sipping on the Honey Deuce cocktail – vodka, lemonade and raspberry liqueur, garnished with three, tennis-ball-green honeydew melon balls.
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The Honey Deuce is the official drink of the U.S. Open — last year bartenders poured 738,459 of them at the tournament, and this year 8,000 cases of honeydew melons were trucked from California to New York for the occasion! And the person who created the drink? He lives on Mercer Island!
Nick Mautone is a mixologist, author of five cocktail books and former managing partner at New York City’s Gramercy Tavern, alongside Danny Meyer and Tom Colicchio, but that’s just the tip of the ice cube.
In my interview with Nick, he tells me the origin story of the Honey Deuce, which cocktails he uses to judge a bar, and he generously shares the Honey Deuce recipe so you can recreate it at home. Look! You finally have an excuse to use your melon baller!
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Tell me the story of how the Honey Deuce came to be! You were the first brand ambassador for Grey Goose vodka and they asked you to create a signature cocktail...
After our 2006 Grey Goose brand team meeting about the U.S. Open signature cocktail, I headed home to my house in Hampton Bays, Long Island. 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, topped with orange sherbet. 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 U.S. Open is held in the absolute heat and heavy humidity of late summer in N.Y.C. Therefore, it needed to be lighter, more thirst quenching and sessionable [a low-alcohol drink, so many can be enjoyed over the period of an event]. My first iterations of the cocktail were more complex and used the same ingredients as my summer salad…Grey Goose Original Vodka, homemade rosemary-citrus syrup and 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 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.
It is the highest grossing cocktail in the world of sports...how much are we talking and how many Honey Deuces are sold every year?
I believe it is! In 2025, there were over 740,000 Honey Deuce cocktails sold at the U.S. Open and over 3.5 million have been sold since 2011. The most recent price of the Honey Deuce was $23, so yes, that adds up quickly.
You've written several books, been a restaurateur and bartender — what are some of the highlights of your food and drink career?
I have many highlights to my career. Number one was the amazing people I have been fortunate enough to work with over the years. The hospitality industry is filled with wonderful, driven, creative and caring people and I love the people more than anything.
Gramercy Tavern was my home for seven-plus years and nurturing it to become one of the greatest restaurants in the world was certainly the highlight of my career.
Turning around the Rainbow Room [in NYC] and helping it become one of the highest-grossing restaurants in the world at a very high level of excellence was something pretty special.
On this current trip to Japan and Singapore, I have been engaged by the Japanese External Trade Organization and Ministry of Agriculture to help them promote sake in new markets and non-traditional methods. I am looking forward to this new chapter as I continue writing two more books.
Is there a particular cocktail that you often order that tests how good a bar or bartender is? Like, "A bar is only as good as its Manhattan" kinda thing…
I think we all do that to some extent, but I try not to judge at all. I generally order a bourbon Manhattan or gin martini unless something on their cocktail menu spurs my curiosity. Truthfully, I like to ask the bartender what they would like to make for me and maybe say bourbon or rum or gin, etc. and see what they come up with.
Official U.S. Open Honey Deuce recipe:
1 ¼ ounces Grey Goose Vodka
3 ounces Fresh lemonade
½ ounce Premium raspberry liqueur
3 Frozen honeydew melon balls
Fill a chilled highball glass with cubed ice and add the vodka. Top with fresh lemonade and raspberry liqueur. Garnish with a skewer of frozen honeydew melon balls.
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