No. 3663

Brandy Peaches

Peches a l'Eau de Vie

Let the peaches be white and sound; rub with a cloth to remove their down, prick the surfaces and lay them in cold water; drain this off and place them in a basin, covering with fresh cold water into which has been added a small piece of alum; set the basin on the fire and as soon as the liquid begins to heat stir the fruits about from time to time, and when they float on top of the liquid remove and throw them again into cold water. Drain and arrange them in one-quart glass jars, having a quarter of a vanilla stick in each, and cover with good white brandy. Close the bottles hermetically and stand them in a cool place to leave for fifteen days, and then drain off the brandy into a basin, add sugar to it, allowing three pounds for each gallon; stir well to melt the sugar, then pour this liquor over the peaches; cork the jars so no air whatever can enter and lay aside in a cool place.

← No. 3662 Brandy Greengages Preserves & Conserves No. 3664 Canned Cherries →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a cook who already knows how brandied fruit behaves; the numbers and vessels need translating, and one 19th-century step is best left out entirely.

The hinge: alcohol strengthNothing here is cooked or sterilised, so the brandy alone is the preservative. Use a spirit at 40% ABV or higher, keep the peaches wholly submerged, and remember that fruit juice and the later sugar syrup will dilute the liquid considerably. If the jar ends up much below about 25% alcohol, refrigerate it and treat it as a short-keeping preserve rather than a shelf-stable one.
Skip the alumAlum was a standard 19th-century firming agent and Ranhofer gives no quantity for it beyond "a small piece". Food-grade potassium alum is still sold for pickling, but in any excess it is astringent and gastrically irritating, and the scald alone will give acceptable results. Blanch the peaches in plain water instead and choose fruit that is firm-ripe rather than soft.
"White brandy"An unaged grape spirit — eau-de-vie de vin or a young unoaked brandy — chosen so it will not stain the fruit. A barrel-aged cognac works but colours the peaches amber and brings its own vanilla, which makes the vanilla stick redundant.
Sugar quantityThree pounds per gallon is roughly 360 g per litre, or about 340 g of sugar per quart of drained brandy. That is a light-to-medium syrup by preserving standards; it sweetens and bodies the liquor rather than setting it.
"When they float"This is a scald, not a cooking. The peaches rise as the flesh loosens and takes on a little air; the recipe gives no timing, so watch them rather than clock them. Let them actually simmer and they collapse in the jar.
"Close hermetically"In 1894 that meant a wired glass stopper with a rubber ring, or a screw cap over a rubber gasket. Modern two-piece canning lids, tightened fingertip-firm, are fine — there is no processing step here, so the seal only has to exclude air, not survive a boiling-water bath.
Prick the skinsDo not skip this. The punctures let the brandy into the flesh and let the fruit's own juice out.
Yield and servingA quart jar takes three or four medium peaches and roughly 2 cups of brandy. The recipe specifies only the fifteen days before the brandy is drained and sweetened; serve as a dessert fruit with a little of its own liquor, and good beside roast ham or a plain cream.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a full professional compendium, and its preserving chapter reads like a French provincial larder transplanted to Manhattan: greengages, cherries and peaches all put down in spirit within a few numbered entries of each other. Fruits à l'eau de vie is an old French domestic method — fruit held in raw spirit, sweetened later — and it belongs to a period when a cool cellar and a strong bottle of brandy were more dependable than any heat-processing technique. The alum is the period's signature: nineteenth-century cookbooks reached for it constantly to keep fruit and pickles crisp, a habit that faded through the twentieth century as its harshness and its irritant effect became better understood. Ranhofer specifies white peaches and colourless brandy.