Summer Bellini Drinks and Romance

There is a certain kind of romance in those hot sultry August days, don’t you think, a certain kind of enchantment that makes the world glow, shimmering, very light and free. The romance of medieval tales, intertwined with myth and legend and magic, old and all encompassing, romance outside time. Quite unlike the rest of the year. Maybe it’s the lightness of unencumbered days, a faint reminiscence of those endless summers of childhood, of eternally living and enjoying, laughing and lying in the sun eating ice cream. The August moon rising above the harvested fields, cicadas singing in the high grass, the smell of water and hay and hot stones, music in the distance. The air is suave and bears the promise of a dance, a kiss, a dip in the river at midnight. Anything is possible, and walking up to the house I spot the gleam of a firefly in the anemones, fairy lanterns.

To brush my hair and put on some lipstick each morning, a dab of frangipani on my collarbone, as if I’m expecting a lover. I wear silk dresses and white cotton, barefoot. Undeniably, August is one of my favourite months in the year. I soak up the sun like the white snake in the rocks, every single ray until my body is made of blazing light. I know I will live off it in the dead of the winter months.

The fruit trees are laden this year, those hot summer days adding sweetness to their ripening bodies. Especially the peach tree, it is bearing such an abundance, its branches gracefully arching down so I can easily reach them, and I find nothing compares to biting through the sun warmed skin of a ripe peach, standing by the kitchen sink, its juices flowing down my chin.

In spite of all nonchalant romance of these days, I won’t let those peaches go to rot, so I made a batch of peach wine, then a couple of jars of poached peaches for New Year’s Eve dinner, but the rest of it, we eat them just so, or make them into bellinis, one of the few cocktails I ever make, as I’m generally not very much into mixed drinks, maybe a little too lazy too. It’s a gorgeous summer drink, juiced peach and champagne, iced in case the weather is really really hot.

What you’ll need

A couple of really nice ripe juicy peaches and a bottle of bubbly. Maybe some sugar, maybe some ice.

How you make it

Remove the stones of the peaches and blend the peaches for a couple of seconds, add a little sugar and mix. I usually count half a peach and half a teaspoon of sugar per drink. Pour into nice champagne glasses and fill up with bubbly, maybe add some ice.