Cocktails with Apricot
Apricot is an orange stone fruit with velvety skin, sweet and lightly tart.
How it's used
The flesh is muddled into a drink or cooked into a syrup or purée. It suits sours and sparkling drinks with brandy, gin or citrus.
Substitutes for Apricot
Apricot purée
Use 17 g for each fresh half. Check the label: if it has added sugar, you will need less syrup.
Canned halves
One drained half stands in for a fresh one. Juice-packed fruit comes closest. Fruit packed in heavy syrup carries about twice the sugar, making a sweeter drink.
Dried apricots
One dried half stands in for a fresh half. Chop and soak it in hot water before muddling.
Fresh peach
Muddle 17 g of ripe peach for each apricot half. It is about as sweet, but the drink will smell of peach. A drop of lemon juice helps if it seems flat.
Apricot liqueur
A barspoon adds apricot flavor and about the sugar of half a fresh apricot, but none of its flesh.
Storage
Firm apricots ripen at room temperature. Ripe ones keep in the fridge for a few days.
