The Honey Deuce turns twenty at the US Open, a Champagne challenger just arrived in a tennis ball can, and the recipe takes about a minute. Here's how to set the table for the last three weeks of the season.
My mother-in-law asked me last week what the pink drink was. She had the Open on in the background, the way half of Stark County does for these two weeks, and every third shot from the stands had one in it. So this is for her, and for anyone else who has wondered. The recipe is below, and if you're going to make one, the Runway Athletics Tennis Tumblers ($36) are the closest thing we carry to the souvenir cup it comes in.
The US Open is the only major where the drink is as famous as the trophy. Wimbledon has strawberries and cream and a Pimm's Cup. Roland Garros hands you a ham baguette and a glass of Champagne. New York invented a cocktail, put it in a plastic cup, and turned it into a souvenir people carry home on the 7 train.
The Drink That Runs New York
Vodka, fresh lemonade, a little raspberry liqueur, and three frozen honeydew melon balls skewered on a pick so they sit in the glass looking exactly like tennis balls. That's the whole trick. It was created by restaurateur Nick Mautone for Grey Goose twenty years ago, and the name comes from deuce, the 40-40 score every club player knows too well. Take the melon out and you have a raspberry lemonade with vodka in it, which nobody photographs.
The numbers are genuinely absurd. The Open sold 738,459 of them last year, roughly $17 million from a single recipe over three weeks, which is more than the tournament pays either singles champion. The price is holding at $23 this year, and people keep buying anyway, partly because the acrylic cup comes home with you. Some households have a shelf of them organized by year. I own eleven tennis totes, so I am in no position to judge.
How to Make One at Home
Grey Goose publishes the recipe and it takes about a minute. One and a quarter ounces of vodka, three ounces of fresh lemonade, half an ounce of raspberry liqueur, and one to three frozen honeydew melon balls on a skewer. Fill a tall glass with ice, pour the vodka and lemonade, float the raspberry liqueur so it sinks through in that sunset ribbon, and add the melon. Put it on a Henry Handwork Tennis Cocktail Napkin ($38 for a mixed set of four) and you have done the whole job.
Two things I've learned making these. Ball the melon a day ahead and freeze it, because frozen balls chill the drink and stay put on the skewer while fresh ones slide off and go soft in ten minutes. And use real lemonade, since the bottled kind is too sweet and the raspberry has nowhere to go.
Make the non-alcoholic version properly too: sparkling water for the vodka, raspberry syrup for the liqueur, same melon, same glass. Everyone at the party gets the tennis balls. That matters more than you'd think.
A Challenger in a Tennis Ball Can
This year the Honey Deuce has competition. Moët & Chandon introduced the Moët Serve: Ice Impérial poured over ice with three lime wheels stacked up, in a can shaped like a tennis ball tube. It's $20, and Ice Impérial is the cuvée the house built specifically to be poured over ice, which sounds like heresy until you've stood in the Flushing sun in early September.
You'll find it at the new Club de Tennis Bar in the middle of the Food Village, alongside Brut Impérial, Nectar Impérial Rosé and a Moët Mimosa in the gold goblet. Unlike the Honey Deuce, the Serve is also being poured at bars around Manhattan, so New York gets to drink the tournament without buying a ticket. At home it's Ice Impérial, three large cubes, three lime wheels, and nothing else.
Setting the Table for It
This is the part of the season I like best. Fall league hasn't started, the evenings are finally sitting-outside weather, and there's a match on every night for three weeks. A watch party is the easiest entertaining of the whole year because the tennis does the work. Beyond the napkins, the Peking Handicraft Tennis Kitchen Towel ($13.75) is the cheapest thing in the boutique and still enough to make a kitchen look like it belongs to someone who plays, and the Racquets Hand Towel ($32) belongs in the powder room for the night. There is exactly one of those.
Then there's the piece that stays out after the trophy ceremony. The Crossed Racquets Hook Pillow ($72.50) is hand-hooked wool, the kind of thing that goes on the chair in September and never comes off, and its companion Bouncing Tennis Pillow ($62.50) does the same job in a lighter key. Peking Handicraft is new to us and arriving two and three units at a time. It's all in Bags, Accessories & Gifts.
If You're the One Going
Flushing in the first week is hot, and in the second week it turns on you after dark. Anyone who has sat through a night session in a sundress knows the feeling. Dress for the whole day rather than the two hours on court. The Club and Court Ashby Dress (from $89) is cotton pique and reads as a dress the second you leave the grounds, which is the entire point of a women's tennis dress that travels. The Paddle & Palm Floral Resort Dress ($96) is the one I'd wear to an afternoon match and then straight to dinner.
Bring a layer. The Runway Athletics Navy Sweater ($89) is what you'll want by the third set of a night session, and it does the same work at home when the porch gets cool. Five left. Carry the day in the Sol & Selene Resilience Neoprene Tote ($90), our most-bought bag and down to one, or keep it light with the Courtgirl Game On Travel Pouch ($48) in navy canvas.
And if the evening has a table at the end of it, the Twine and Love Tennis Beaded Clutch ($85) is the one people reach across the table to look at. Hand-sewn ivory seed beads spelling LOVE, a tennis ball for one letter and crossed racquets for the other, big enough for a phone and a lipstick and nothing else. There's a pickleball version ($80) too. It all lives in Court to Cocktails, our edit of premium tennis apparel built for this stretch of the year.
One Last Word Before the Final
Half the tournaments on tour have copied the idea by now. Indian Wells has the Drop Shot, Cincinnati has the Ace Paloma. All of it exists because somebody understood that people come to tennis for an afternoon, not only for a match, and an afternoon needs something in your hand.
That's the same reason this boutique exists. The tennis is two hours. The rest of the day is lunch, the drive home, and the people you sit with. The Open runs through September 13, so there's time. Ball your melon ahead.
Everything here is in the boutique now, ships in 3 to 5 business days, and comes with free returns, always. Most of it came to us in single-digit quantities, so when the last set of napkins goes it's gone until next season. If you'd like help building one outfit that carries you from a September match to the table afterward, book a free 15-minute Society Stylist session with me. Here's to the last three weeks of the season. — Evrim
Tags: #HoneyDeuce #USOpen2026 #CourtToCocktails #TennisEntertaining #WatchParty #HenryHandwork #PekingHandicraft #StarkCountyTennis | Persona themes: Social Spark · Effortless Versatility · Gift Guide · Tennis Culture
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