Cocktail Class: Peach Caipirinha

Peaches are the most seductive fruit of summer: Their aroma, when ripe, is both tart and intensely, beautifully sweet. Just one sitting on my counter can perfume the whole kitchen. Apply slight pressure at the top, near the crown, and the flesh beneath the skin gives way slightly; peeling it is like slipping off the clothes of a lover.

Or as Wallace Stevens writes—so much more eloquently—in his poem, A Dish of Peaches in Russia:

With my whole body I taste these peaches,
I touch them and smell them.  Who speaks?

I absorb them as the Angevine
Absorbs Anjou.  I see them as a lover sees,

As a young lover sees the first buds of spring
And as the black Spaniard plays his guitar.

So the end of summer, to me, is about peaches. In cobblers and salads, stirred into the batter for scones, churned into sorbet, mixed into cocktails we carry out to the front porch and toast our neighbors passing by.

Peach Caipirinha

1/2 medium peach, peeled and pitted
1 heaping Tbsp. superfine (baker's) sugar
1/2 lime
2 oz. cachaca

Place half peach in a blender and purée. Add a few drops of lime juice to keep it from browning.

Trim ends off of lime so white rind is gone. Cut lengthwise and remove pith from center. Slice almost all the way through perpendicular to axis of lime, leaving rind side intact. Slice diagonally a couple of times, again, not slicing through. Cut in half, perpendicular to axis and put in glass, flesh side up.

Put sugar over lime. Muddle gently, squeezing out all the juice you can. Add puréed peach. Put into shaker. Fill with ice. Add the cachaca. Shake. Pour with ice into tumbler.

See all my peach recipes here!