Carly’s Fruity Bourbon Juice:

• 2oz Bourbon (or Canadian whiskey. Or rye, what the hell!)
• 3/4oz lemon juice
• 1oz peach nectar

Shake with ice. Strain into rocks glass over largest available ice cube.

***

This is a love letter to my friend Carly, to whom I wordlessly handed a not-very-cold-anymore mason jar of this concoction on an August night on Brent’s balcony. And to summer in general, and that balcony in particular.

It’s also an exhortation to combine two very summery, very Southern culinary activities: making pie and drinking bourbon.

When you peel and macerate fruit—especially stone fruit—for a pie, you end up with a half cup of sugary, nutmeg-y juice at the bottom of the bowl. What I’m advocating here is just dumping that juice into a measuring cup (unceremoniously mushing the fruit back into the bowl, if you’re me) and mixing a drink with it. I cannot imagine tipping dry quarter-teaspoonfuls of cinnamon and nutmeg into a shaker would produce something at all enjoyable, but this is crazy fucking good.

You can use canned nectar, although it’s not as fresh tasting and you may have to use more.

Do this with apple pie squeezins in the winter, too.