Pairing Cigars & Alcohol – De Kuyper Peachtree
Cigars and alcohol. Two luxury products that go hand in hand, and sometimes even meet on business level. Aging tobacco in whisky, rum, or cognac barrels is a practice several brands do to achieve extra flavour to the wrapper for certain lines.
The famous bourbon brand Maker’s Mark has their own cigar, sold in tubes with the signature wax coating. Drew Estate works with Pappy van Winkle and used to make Kahlua cigars. Mombacho used to have the Diplomatico series but Mombacho no longer exists. General Cigars works with Sazerac, which resulted in Fireball cigars, Weller by Cohiba and collaborations with Buffalo Trace. And there is the Diesel Whisky Row, a collaboration with Rabbit Hole Distilleries. Fratello Cigars also sells craft beer.
Most famous are probably the Cuban collaboration between Martell Cognac and Cohiba. Dominique London, the European retailer with more than 20 shops in the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and the Canary Islands takes it one step further. They bought a distillery in Wales and produce whisky, gin, rum, vodka and liquors.
De Kuyper Peachtree
I had to get myself a bottle of peach liqueur for the Peach Cobbler when writing about the Sir Chill gin, which you can read here, and while I have this bottle, why not see if I can make more cocktails with Peachtree? I went for Peachtree after consulting with alcohol-industry friends who all recommended this over any other brand, the slightly higher price is worth it they said.
Peachtree is the first liqueur that has the taste and smell of tree-ripe peaches, made following a well-balanced recipe and delicate distillation. The taste of Peachtree is perceived as sublime, with a well-rounded peach taste and characteristic lingering aftertaste. The unprecedented success of Peachtree was obvious at its launch in 1984, when 13 million bottles were sold within 10 months. Today Peachtree is the most sold peach liqueur worldwide selling in over 100 countries. Japan is the biggest market contributing to the success of Peachtree today. The new bottle, launched end of 2018, underlines the lightness and mixability of this delicious and refreshing peach liqueur. The same product quality since over 30 years appears in a refreshing design.
The story began with a man pruning his peach trees in Georgia in the early 1980s. The gentleman in question was Earl LaRoe, a flavour scientist for National Distillers. Before the prohibition era in the USA (1920-1933), De Kuyper made an agreement with National Distillers regarding sales of De Kuyper products in the US, and they set up a joint production facility in New Jersey. National Distillers asked Earl LaRoe to help develop a lighter, sweeter, lower-proof product. It was the peach trees in his garden that gave him the idea for the flavour. He also visited Schiedam, and worked on perfecting the idea with our former Master Distiller. Peachtree was released in the early autumn of 1984. De Kuyper was the first to develop a liqueur that has the taste and smell of ripe peaches; hence the official name is the Original Peachtree. The liqueur is made using a well-balanced recipe, and due to its distillation, the liquid is crystal clear.
Neat
The nose makes it clear what this liqueur is made of: peach. The taste is also clear, sweet peach with a slight pepper. Peach skin, peach melba, it’s all about the peach, sweet though. Maybe too sweet to pair with a cigar as the drink isn’t strong so a strong cigar might overpower the drink, and a milder cigar can’t stand up to the sweetness. Medium bodied is the way to go, but with a bold Nicaraguan flavour profile. I’d stay away from Maduro wrappers.
Fizzy Peachtree
The nose is a nice mix of peach and lime, slightly muted by the sparkling water. The lime is too strong in my humble opinion, which makes the cocktail too acidic. The peach isn’t strong enough to break through the lime and the sparkling water dilutes everything too much. An earthy cigar with some strength would be best as that’s a flavour that can cut through the lime.
And now for the Fizzy Peachtree recipe:
1⅓ ounce or 40ml of Original Peachtree
3⅓ ounces of 100ml of sparkling water
1 ounce or 30ml of freshly squeezed lime juice.
lime wheel
Pour the lime juice in a big wine glass, drop the lime wheel in and add ice and then add the other ingredients. Stir gently to combine.
Sex on the Beach
The Sex on the Beach cocktail is known as much for its name as its flavour. A combination of vodka, peach liqueur, orange juice, cranberry juice and crème de cassis, the Sex on the Beach skyrocketed in popularity in the 1980s and is often seen as a mashup of a Fuzzy Navel (peach schnapps and orange juice) and a Cape Codder (vodka and cranberry juice).
The nose is a mix between orange juice and peach with some lemon from the garnish. I used YBet Premium Welsh Pink Vodka for this cocktail. The cocktail is refreshing, the sweet peach shines through with a kick from the vodka and the citrus and sweetness from the fruit juices. This is a nice beach cocktail so the name is quite fitting. I bet this would be nice with pineapple juice instead of cranberry juice too, which would make it more tiki. This is not a strong cocktail, so a strong cigar would not be a good pairing. I medium bodied, not to sweet, creamy cigar would be my choice for this cocktail. I was smoking a Liga Privada T52 before I made this cocktail and that was just too much for the Sex on the Beach, too strong and too peppery to be a good pairing. Slightly milder and more creamy would be a much better fit.
And now for the Sex on the Beach recipe:
1½ ounce or 45ml of Vodka
½ ounce or 15ml of Peachtree
1½ ounce or 45ml of Orange Juice, freshly squeezed
1½ ounce or 45ml of Cranberry Juice
1 Lemon Twist
Add the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake. Strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a cocktail umbrella
Another way is to up the juices to 2 ounces or 60ml, fill a hurricane glass with ice and pour the orange juice, vodka and Peachtree in. Stir to combine then add the cranberry juice to create a sunset appearance. Garnish with an orange wheel, cocktail cherry and the obligatory cocktail umbrella. This is the version when you want to wow your guests with appearance.
Peach Cobbler
The Peach Cobbler was actually a collaboration between Leandro DiMonriva from the YouTube channel The Educated Barfly and Bryan Tetorakis, General Manager of Cole’s. I used their original recipe for the Sir Chill gin article, but now I’m trying Leandro’s updated version with 2 dashes of Angostura bitters and a ¼ ounce of 7½ml of Vanilla extract.
There is some almond on the nose, with vanilla and the aroma of the botanicals of the gin. This is by far the best cocktail of them all. The sweetness is perfectly balanced by the citrus, while the orgeat gives a little nuttiness. The sweetness comes from the peach and the vanilla, with both flavours faintly noticeable in the cocktail. It’s complicated and delicate. This is perfect for a mild to medium cigar, something with a Connecticut Shade wrapper or another mild cigar such as the Cuban Fonseca Delicias.
And now for the Peach Cobbler recipe:
1½ ounces or 45ml of Gin (I used Four Pillars Yuzu gin)
¾ ounce or 22½ml of Peach liqueur
¾ ounce or 22½ml of orgeat
¾ ounce or 22½ml of lemon juice, freshly squeezed
¼ ounce or 7½ml of vanilla extract
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
Add all the ingredients into a shaker with ice and shake vigorously for 8 to 10 seconds. Strain into a rocks glass and fill with crushed ice. Garnish with seasonal fruit and a mint sprig
Inspector X
