The Peach 75: Official Fresh Dirt Holiday Cocktail

The age of the three-martini lunch may be long gone, but the magazine and publishing world is still a pretty booze-friendly place. We at Fresh Dirt particularly love cocktails made with unusual, all-natural ingredients.  So when we heard that F. Oliver’s manager Sean Hellman had invented a drink that included peach balsamic vinegar, we knew we had to try it.  The fact that he based his recipe on the French 75, a WWI-era cocktail that is one of my personal favorites, only sweetened the deal.  After several grueling rounds of taste tests, we settled on the following recipe:

The Peach 75

1.5 ounces of gin (if you have the option, we recommend a citrus-y gin like Seagram’s or Tanqueray No. 10, rather than a gin with heavier juniper flavor like Plymouth)
1 T peach-infused white balsamic vinegar (we used F. Oliver’s, naturally)
1/2 T simple syrup
2-3 ounces of sparkling wine (we used a brut prosecco; if you went slightly sweeter, you could probably skip the simple syrup)
lemon twist or pomegranate arils, for garnish

Shake the first three ingredients with ice, then pour into a champagne flute.  Top with sparkling wine and add the garnish.

The result is a sweet-tart cocktail with just a breath of peach flavor.  (Rest assured it doesn’t taste like vinegar!)  We highly recommend adding the pomegranate arils, as fussy as it may seem to rip apart a pomegranate just to make a drink; their garnet color makes a beautiful accent to the golden hue of the cocktail itself.  The Peach 75 is sparkly, spectacular, and celebratory—perfect for the holidays.  Cheers!

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