Summer is coming to a close, but don’t break out the hot toddy ingredients quite yet — there’s one more seasonal cocktail you’ll want to make over ice. The Peach Smash from a top bartender at Angel’s Envy bourbon is a refreshing, slow-sipping drink recipe to add to your repertoire before summer ends.
The Peach Smash is a quirky cocktail. It’s somewhat free-form like a Pimm’s Cup, but depending on who’s making it for you, it can look like anything from a mojito to a whiskey sour. The drink is typically built with bourbon, lemon juice, some form of sweetened peach juice, and something bubbly to top. The garnish is always mint and peach.
Many Peach Smash recipes call for ginger beer to top the drink, though, which can make it sound a bit like a Kentucky Mule. But the Peach Smash is really much closer to a Julep or a mojito, and ginger beer can often overpower what should really be the stand-out accent flavor: mint.
Here’s where Angel’s Envy fixed it: they replaced ginger beer with a dry sparkling lemonade, which balances the sweetness of the peaches with tartness instead of spice. It keeps the cocktail fruit forward, but it also mitigates the risk of you or your bartender accidentally making a Kentucky Mule with some peaches.
Angel’s Envy Global Brand Ambassador Angel Teta came up with the recipe, and kept it fun and easy with off-the-shelf ingredient options and a peach ring candy garnish. Her original recipe calls for the following ingredients:
- 1 1/2 oz Angel’s Envy Bourbon Finished in Port Wine Barrels
- 3/4 oz Reàl Peach Puree Infused Peach Syrup
- 1/4 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
- 3 oz Fever Tree Sparkling Sicilian Lemonade
For those of us with access to great peaches, though, Teta says making your own peach syrup is pretty easy. You only need three ingredients: equal parts (measured, not weighed) of white sugar, hot water, and cut up or sliced peaches, pits removed.
“Stir to combine and infuse in the fridge overnight,” she advises. “Syrup should be fully incorporated (sugar dissolved) Strain peaches off and reserve fruit for a cobbler, garnish, or a cute fruit parfait. Syrup will last in the fridge for 3 weeks. Add a little Angel’s Envy to fortify to extend the shelf life, but always keep refrigerated.”
Once you have everything, it’s as easy as pouring the ingredients into a highball over ice, stirring, topping with sparkling lemonade, and adding the mint (and the peach ring, of course).
Yes, it’ll work with any bourbon, but the subtle port character of Angel’s Envy adds a nice depth to the peach and lemon notes. My advice: pre-batch everything ahead of time in a pitcher (a 750 mL bottle of bourbon will yield about 16 1 1/2 ounce servings). When you’re ready to serve, measure out the full 2 1/2 ounce serving into a glass and top with half a Fever Tree. Make them in groups of two so the lemonade stays fizzy.
The last drink of the summer should be easy, because everything else about summer ending isn’t.
G. Clay Whittaker is a Maxim contributor covering lifestyle, whiskey, cannabis and travel. His work has also appeared in Bon Appetit, Men’s Journal, Cigar Aficionado, Playboy and Esquire. Subscribe to his newsletter Drinks & Stuff for whiskey reviews and trends, perspectives on drinks, and stuff.