One Stone Fruit, Three Cocktails: Peaches
It’s stone fruit season! Here’s how to do right by its wonderfulness, in cocktail form. Each week in August, we’ll deliver a different fruit—mingling happily with three distinct spirits. On today’s menu: sweet, luscious peaches.
Get peachy. Photo credit: Foodcollection, StockFood
Craft cocktail maestro Katie Emmersonworks with Jackson Cannon at his esteemed Boston, Massachusetts bar The Hawthorne. At Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, she waxed downright poetic about her sherry fruit cobbler, in which the main ingredient shifts right along with the seasons.
We asked Emmerson for a peachy version of her cobbler and a couple of other peach-based concoctions. Our request brought a smile to her face: Emmerson grew up in Rochester, New York, and has fond memories of eating super-ripe peaches by lakes in the Adirondacks with her grandparents when she was a kid. After consulting her go-to pairings cookbook, The Flavor Bible, she decided to keep vanilla, nuts, and mint nearby to pair with the fruit. See how she spun all those flavors together below.
Photo credit: Katie Emmerson
Peach Sherry Cobbler
by Katie Emmerson
Makes one
“The peach flavor shines through, it’s a little bit on the drier side than you’d expect with a cobbler, and this is refreshing without adding citrus.”
3/4 oz. dry curaçao
1/4 oz. peach liqueur
5 1” slices of peach, muddled, plus three for garnish
2 oz. Palo Cortado Sherry
1 SPRIG MINT
Freshly grated nutmeg
Put curaçao, peach liqueur, and 5 peach slices in a mixing glass and muddle. Add sherry and shake. Strain into an empty rocks glass, making sure to press the fruit through the strainer with your muddler or the back of a spoon. Fill the glass with crushed ice. Garnish with three fanned peach slices, a sprig of mint, and nutmeg. Serve with a straw.
Photo credit: Katie Emmerson
Peaches ‘n Cream
by Katie Emmerson
Makes one
“Very simply, it tastes like peaches and cream, and reminds me of Creamsicles. It’s a great meal-ender in lieu of dessert.”
1/2 small peach, sliced
1 oz. store-bought vanilla syrup
2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. heavy cream
Muddle peach with vanilla syrup in a mixing glass. Add gin and heavy cream. Shake well in shaker with ice. Fine-strain into a chilled coupe glass and serve.
Photo credit: Katie Emmerson
Silk Road
by Katie Emmerson
Makes one
“A little bit more of that almond flavor here. Really refreshing, with sort of sugarcane notes—like a fruity Mai Tai.”
5 1” slices of peach, plus two slices for garnish
1/2 oz. almond syrup
1/2 oz. honey syrup (a 3:1 mix of honey and water, cooked together)
1 oz. light or white rum
1 oz. dark rum
3/4 oz. fresh lemon juice, plus lemon slice for garnish
Muddle 5 peach slices with almond syrup and honey in a pint glass. Add both rums and lemon juice and dry-shake (without ice). Fine-strain into an empty snifter. Fill with crushed ice. Garnish with fanned peach slices and lemon slices. Serve with a straw.
