Winter was all about citrus and managing acid. Spring was all about bitter roots and herbs. We’ve had 6 months of intense flavors, but now summer is all about fresh fruit. Melon, berries, stone fruit (or drupe if you want to get fancy) – bright colors, sweet flavors, right from the farm.
I grew up in the middle-of-nowhere Indiana on quite a bit of land. Aside from being very hot all the time and trying to find whatever body of water we could to cool off, many of my best summer memories were growing and finding berries, cherries, and especially peaches all over the place.
I look forward to fruit coming into season each year (especially Rainier cherries here in Washington), and this year I’m exceptionally excited to make drinks with all of these amazing ingredients. These drinks will be very different in profile than most of what I’ve written about so far, and I’m excited to share them!
Too Sweet?
A lot of bars, and discerning drinkers, seem to be increasingly wary of any drink with fruit in it because they’re afraid it will be too sweet for their palate. The same thing has happened in craft beers, where adding fruit was once a guaranteed way to get high ratings, it’s now a good way to just fix something you weren’t initially happy with. There are, of course, exceptions, but that’s the general trend at the top of both industries.
Frankly, I think this is ridiculous. Obviously, I love more modern spirit-forward drinks with very little in the way of any kind of juice. But to worry about the sugar in fruit making the drink too sweet is silly if you aren’t also avoiding basically every liqueur on the market. A (normal) strawberry’s sugar content is 8 grams of sugar to a cup, whereas a cup of Cointreau has 59 grams of sugar.
Cointreau is certainly one of the sweetest liqueurs out there, but it should be obvious that just having some fresh fruit incorporated in a drink really isn’t the issue here. Certainly a drink with a lot of fruit juices can be made sweet, but that’s only if you’re also adding sugar somewhere else. The drinks I’ll be making this summer won’t be sugar bombs, I promise.
Frozen Drinks?
Another common thought regarding fruity drinks is that they’re all frozen “umbrella drinks” sitting in an icee machine behind iffy bars or tourist traps. I actually tend to like those drinks as a novelty – they’re difficult to make at home and they evoke very specific feelings. But those tend to use bottled fruit juices, extra sweeteners, and still often manage to be watery.
If you use fresh juice/fruit, a little ice, and the right amount of spirt you can toss a drink in a blender, pulse it just a bit, and get a smooth, aerated drink with a unique texture that won’t even begin to remind you of that bad pina colada you had in Mexico when you were 18.
A Starting Ratio
Here’s what’s been working out well for me so far. ~20 ounces of a drink, take 2 cups of fresh (or fresh-frozen) fruit, a couple ice cubes, an ounce of citrus juice, and 4 ounces of spirit. Toss in a bit of herb or bitter if you think the drink could use it.
Above is watermelon, strawberry, mint, and lime juice in the blender with aged rum on the way. It turned out absolutely delicious! Looking forward to perfecting this style this summer (though more traditional techniques will certainly still make an appearance).
