Blend of Nectarines and Vermouth for a Fruity Summer Drink
Apart from Bellini, there are not many well-known stone fruit cocktails. But peach and nectarine puree is very tasty, albeit a little viscous, and sparkling is not the only way to dilute them. If you’re looking for a low alcohol sipper that tastes like summer, all you need is a little nectarine, a little sugar, and a little dry vermouth.
This recipe actually makes two cocktails – one for you and one for a happy friend. Start by chopping up a small nectarine and stirring it in with the sugar. Wait about half an hour until the juice flows, then mix with dry vermouth and strain. It’s a little tricky, but the result is a fruity and complex drink with a pleasant astringency and pleasant almond notes. No vermouth? Sherri works great too.
To be honest, this drink is too easy to digest, which makes the lower alcohol content a major plus. It also pairs very well; simply increase the amount of ingredients to suit your needs, then toss it all into a blender and strain through a sieve into a jug. But I’m getting ahead of myself – to make a couple of these peach (or rather, non-catharine) beauties, you will need:
- 1 small nectarine, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 4 ounces dry vermouth (I like Dolin)
Stir in the nectarine and sugar and let sit in a small bowl or cup for half an hour. Pour the fruit into a blender (or the cup that came with the hand blender), add the vermouth and beat until smooth. Strain through a sieve into two small cocktail glasses. If things start to clog, stir the mixture in the strainer to keep it moving. Add a couple of ice cubes to each glass and enjoy.