Cocktails with Pear
Pear is a soft, sweet fruit with juicy flesh, used as flesh and as juice.
Substitutes for Pear
Pear juice covers the volume and the flavor. A ripe apple comes close and tastes a little more tart, which usually means a touch less lemon in the drink. Pear liqueur or syrup carries the fruit and brings sugar with it.
Often confused with
Poached or canned pear
Cooked, so the fresh floral top note is gone and the sugar is up, and it muddles smoothly and tastes more of syrup than of fruit.
Asian pear
Crisp and watery like an apple, and far less aromatic. It juices well and carries almost none of the perfume the European pear is chosen for, so the drink comes out fresh and anonymous.
Storage
A pear ripens from the inside out, so the flesh is ready before the skin admits it: press the neck by the stem, not the belly. A firm pear needs four to five days at room temperature for a Bartlett and five to seven for a Bosc or Comice. Ripe, it holds a few days chilled and goes grainy soon after.
