How does a plant whose first recorded harvest was 5000 years ago endure the ages, surviving fickle palates, massive agricultural upheavals, various climate zones, and thousands of miles of trans-oceanic journeys? By being sweet. Watermelons are measurably sweeter than nearly any other fruit-bearing annual crop. And most people have a sweet tooth. This desire for sugar has brought the watermelon to places very different from its sub-Saharan roots. Glen Drowns bred this variety in the 1970s so that he could have an early-maturing watermelon in northern Idaho, a location which can experience cool, 35- to 45-degree nights at any time during the summer. Today, Blacktail Mountain, a highly flavored, sweet, icebox watermelon, has become a contemporary heirloom, an easy-to-grow high performer in northern locales that grows happily in warmer climates, too.