Apricot

FruitsStone Fruit

The apricot is the orange-yellow stone fruit of Prunus armeniaca and related species. In beverages it appears as fresh juice and nectar, as rehydrated dried apricot or apricot leather, as fermented and distilled fruit spirits, and, through its almond-scented kernel, as a flavoring for liqueurs and plant milks.

How apricot is prepared

Apricot is used as: - juice and nectar - reconstituted apricot-paste drinks scented with orange blossom or rose water - syrups, shrubs and sodas - kernel-based milks and almond-like flavorings - fruit spirits distilled from fermented apricot mash - sweet apricot liqueurs and kernel-flavored liqueurs used in mixed drinks Because raw kernels contain amygdalin, kernel-based preparations rely on traditional processing or on regulated flavorings.

Drying

Removing moisture from an ingredient. This term alone does not specify the use of heat.

Beverages using this technique · 1
Weingut Lukas Krauß
Napa
Fermented Blend
prepared as Dried Apricots

Weingut Lukas Krauß uses Dried Apricots in Napa, built from Apricot.[7]

Yeast Fermentation

Fermentation carried out by yeast. The organism, conditions and resulting alcohol level depend on the preparation.

Beverages using this technique · 1
Three Spirit
Blurred Vines Sharp
0% ABV
prepared as Yeast-Fermented Apricot and White Grape Wine

Three Spirit uses Yeast-Fermented Apricot and White Grape Wine in Blurred Vines Sharp: apricot and white grape juice concentrates fermented with wine yeast.[8][9]

Other preparations

Beverages using this preparation · 4
BOUCHE
PROXY D
Sparkling0% ABV
prepared as Apricot

Marille apricot, part of the fermented infusion.[10]

Gnista
Funky Orange Wine Alternative
Still orange
prepared as Apricot

Listed among the botanical extracts and infusions.[11]

PROXIES
Blanc Slate
Still<0.5% ABV
prepared as Apricot Concentrate

PROXIES uses Apricot Concentrate in Blanc Slate: apricot juice reduced to a concentrate.[12]

Service signal Works as a liquid component.

SAVEUR DRINKS
Apricot – Salty Lemon
prepared as Apricot Concentrate

Apricot juice from apricot juice concentrate.[13][14]

Service signal Works as a liquid component.

In depth

Origins in Central Asia and China

The common apricot was first cultivated in Central Asia and China. From there it traveled along trade routes toward Iran and Armenia, reaching southwest Asia by about the third century BC. Within a few more centuries it was established in Syria, Anatolia, Greece and Italy. In China the tree carried symbolic weight, linked with scholarship and with healing, and its kernels became a staple of traditional medicine. That medicinal use foreshadowed one of the oldest apricot drinks. Sweet kernels are soaked, ground and strained into a milky, almond-scented beverage, a forerunner of today's apricot-kernel plant milks. Because kernels naturally contain amygdalin, a compound that releases cyanide, such drinks traditionally rely on sweeter kernel types and careful preparation.[1]

Qamar al-din in the medieval Levant

The best-documented historic apricot beverage comes from Syria. In the orchards of the Ghouta around Damascus, apricots were cooked with sugar, pressed through oiled wooden strainers, and dried in the sun into thick sheets of fruit leather called qamar al-din, "moon of the faith." A thirteenth-century Arabic cookbook mentions it as an ingredient. The traveler Ibn Battuta described a dried apricot of that name exported from the Levant. A late sixteenth-century medical handbook gives a recipe for the leather itself. To make the drink, the sheets are dissolved in water and perfumed with orange blossom or rose water. Folk explanations for the name link it to a handsome inventor, to the new moon of Ramadan, or to a caliph's celebrations.[2]

A Ramadan staple across the Arab world

Qamar al-din spread from Syria to Egypt, the wider Levant, the Maghreb and Somalia. It became one of the signature drinks for breaking the fast. It is served thick and cold, valued as a quick source of sugar, minerals and fluid after a long day without food. Cooks vary it with chopped fresh or dried apricot, a splash of orange juice, or a scattering of pine nuts that makes it resemble a fruitier cousin of jallab. More broadly, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern households have long made cooling drinks simply by stirring apricot paste into water. This places apricot within the wider sharbat tradition of fruit-and-flower refreshers. Syrian apricot leather is still considered the benchmark, since the cultivars best suited to it grow mainly in Syria and southern Turkey.[2]

Fruit spirits of Central and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus

Where apricots grew abundantly in Europe, surplus fruit was fermented into a mash and distilled into clear spirits. Austria's Wachau valley on the Danube is renowned for Marillenschnaps, also called Marillenbrand, using the local word for apricot. It is usually double-distilled to around 40 percent alcohol. About a hundred kilograms of ripe fruit yields only some eight liters. Hungary's barack pálinka belongs to the same family, as do the meruňkovice of Moravia. Armenia and Azerbaijan also have strong apricot spirits. These brandies are traditionally poured as digestifs after meals and as gestures of hospitality, and many are still made by small orchards and households.[3]

Apricot liqueurs and cordials

Alongside true distilled fruit spirits, the label "apricot brandy" has long been used for sweetened liqueurs made by steeping apricot flesh and kernels in spirit. Nineteenth-century household manuals describe one method: scald slightly underripe apricots, peel them, cover them with clarified sugar syrup, then bottle the fruit with equal parts syrup and brandy and rest it for a year. In French usage such cordials are known as crème d'abricot or apricotine. Apricot liqueur became a standard bar ingredient in early twentieth-century mixed drinks such as the Paradise cocktail and the Charlie Chaplin. Today bartenders often reproduce its stone-fruit sweetness without alcohol using apricot syrups and shrubs.[4]

The kernel's almond note: amaretto

The apricot's kernel has had its own life in drinks because it is a natural source of benzaldehyde, the compound behind bitter-almond aroma. Italian amaretto, associated with Saronno in Lombardy, may be built on apricot kernels, peach stones or almonds. Its name means "a little bitter," though the finished liqueur is distinctly sweet. A popular local legend tells of a widowed innkeeper who steeped apricot kernels in brandy as a gift for a Renaissance painter. Amaretto is sipped neat, added to coffee, and used in mixed drinks such as the amaretto sour. It can also stand in for orgeat, an almond syrup, in cocktails. Alcohol-free amaretto-style syrups carry the same kernel flavor into coffee and sodas.[5]

East Asia's "Japanese apricot": ume drinks

In East Asia the closely related Prunus mume, the flowering or Japanese apricot, supports a distinct drinks tradition. Japanese umeshu steeps unripe ume with rock sugar in shōchū for many months. Recipes date back roughly three centuries, and it was made both at home and commercially by the late Edo period. It is served on the rocks, with soda or tonic, or cut with green tea or hot water, and it is noticeably lower in alcohol than most spirits. Korea's maesil-ju is a similar fruit liqueur. Maesil-cheong, a sugar-cured ume syrup diluted with water, offers a non-alcoholic counterpart. China's suanmeitang, a tart, smoky summer drink brewed from dried smoked mume, shows the fruit's long use as a brewed refresher.[6]

Apricot in contemporary no- and low-alcohol drinks

Today apricot is one of the most familiar flavors in non-alcoholic beverages. World production has reached several million tonnes a year, led by Turkey's Malatya region together with Uzbekistan, Iran, Italy and Algeria. Bottled nectars and juices, packaged qamar al-din for Ramadan, and apricot sodas and iced teas all rely on that supply. Craft producers and bartenders also use apricot purées, syrups, shrubs and kernel milks to give zero-proof drinks body and a honeyed, floral profile. Others pair apricot with orange blossom, rose, ginger or tea in ways that echo older Levantine and Asian traditions. Dried apricots extend the season, and their concentrated sweetness suits warm infusions and winter punches.[1]