Nectarine Smash
60ml bourbon (Woodford Reserve)
15ml lemon juice
15ml simple syrup
12+ mint leaves
1 nectarine
Peel and slice the nectarine, remove the stone, and muddle thoroughly in one half of the shaker. In the other, gently muddle the mint with the lemon juice and syrup, before adding the whiskey and combining. Shake hard and fine strain over ice into a tumbler. Garnish liberally with mint, a nectarine slice, and a cherry.
I bought some nectarines a few days earlier, and could smell them from across the room while playing guitar this evening. Realising I’d never had a Whiskey Smash before, I popped out to grab some mint, came home, and made this. Smashes are traditional cocktails with no fixed ingredients outside of the mint and seasonal fruit (though were primarily made with whiskey), but whether the lemon juice and simple matches tradition I’m not quite sure. It seemed fairly natural to include them, though I wouldn’t have used any more than I did.
I think the nectarine could have done with a few more days, to get it softer and jucier, but this was delicious. With a thicker than expected texture, the whiskey opens up the sip with the nutty flavours I find present in Whiskey Sours, before the mint gets involved and finally the nectarine rounding it off.
Traditional recipe.