Heavenly to drink, this is a great way to spoil your guests at a party. If you make the poached apricots in advance and freeze them, put them in the blender frozen and omit the ice, adding a splash of water.  These refreshing apricot daiquiris are sure to hit the spot on a hot summer day!–Tom Hunt

WHAT KIND OF ICE SHOULD I USE IN A FROZEN DRINK?

It might sound simple enough to just load up your old blender with a bag of ice, some rum, and fruit.  But hang on…don’t get ahead of yourself. Unless you’re that guy Tom Cruise played in Cocktail (1988 alert), you might need a few pointers to make sure things go smoothly. In general, you want fresh ice—nothing that’s been sitting around in your freezer for 3 months. It will have absorbed some flavor that might not go with your daiquiri. And since you’re making fresh ice anyway, crushed is a good choice but small cubes or chips will give you a thicker cocktail. Big cubes will just wreck your blender unless you’ve got some serious horsepower in your kitchen—and we know a few of you do. The pro recommendation is to use twice as much ice as all the other ingredients combined.

A metal serving tray with two apricot daiquiris with stir sticks, a juiced lemon, and a pot with poached apricots.

Apricot Daiquiri

5 from 1 vote
This apricot daiquiri is made with apricots, lime, sugar, and rum. It’s a cocktail that’s similar to a peach, strawberry or mango daiquiri. We guarantee this frozen drink is gonna radically up your summer entertaining game.
David Leite
CourseDrinks
CuisineAmerican
Servings6 drinks
Calories282 kcal
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Total Time2 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients 

For the poached apricots

  • 14 ounces apricots (5 to 6 medium)
  • 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water
  • 1 cup raw or demerera or turbinado sugar (or substitute granulated sugar)

For the apricot daiquiri

  • 7 tablespoons apricot poaching liquor, or to taste
  • 1 1/4 cups white rum
  • Juice of 2 limes (about 3 tablespoons), or to taste
  • 1 1/3 pounds ice, or to taste

Instructions 

Make the poached apricots

  • Grab a sharp knife and cut each apricot in half. Twist each half in a different direction to pull it apart. Remove and discard the pits.
  • In a small saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to a simmer, add the apricots, and put the lid on. Simmer just until the apricots soften, 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the size. Remove from the heat and let the apricots cool to room temperature. The fruit will continue to soften and the skin will continue to wrinkle as the apricots cool. (The poached apricots will keep 5 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Or you can freeze the apricots and use them instead of ice in the daiquiri, adding a splash of water.)

Make the apricot daiquiri

  • Put the poached apricots, poaching liquor, rum, lime juice and ice in a blender, working in batches if necessary (the blender should never be more than halfway full). Blend until you have a smooth but not quite slushy mixture, about 1 minute. Taste and add more apricot poaching syrup to sweeten the drink or more lime juice to sour the drink. If a thicker consistency is desired, add a little more ice and blend again. Serve right away. Originally published August 10, 2016.

Nutrition

Serving: 1 cocktailCalories: 282 kcalCarbohydrates: 41 gProtein: 1 gFat: 1 gSaturated Fat: 1 gMonounsaturated Fat: 1 gSodium: 9 mgFiber: 1 gSugar: 39 g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Tried this recipe?Mention @leitesculinaria or tag #leitesculinaria!
Recipe © 2016 Tom Hunt. Photo © 2016 Laura Edwards . All rights reserved.

Recipe Testers’ Reviews

Now THIS is a sophisticated summer cocktail. Its texture is soft and it packs a hefty rum punch. This apricot daiquiri will definitely be served at my next deck party. Next time, in addition to using the frozen apricots, I’ll also use ice rather than one or the other. Without ice, the blended daiquiris were not slushy or thick, and the rum was quite strong. I think the ice would dilute the alcohol a bit (which I see as a positive), stretch the recipe to serve more, and provide the desired slushy consistency.

According to the recipe suggestion, I made the poached apricots ahead of time and froze them in lieu of using ice for the daiquiri recipe. The entire mixture easily fit in my Vitamix. After about 30 seconds on medium speed, the daiquiris were done. To brighten or sour the flavor just a bit, I added another 1 tablespoon lime juice at the end and blended again for another 5 seconds. Delicious!

My grandmother preserved 150 pounds of apricots every summer. There were jams and chutney and marmalade, but my favorite was always the apricot halves canned in light syrup. The flavor of the apricots shone so beautifully in this daiquiri that I was transported back to my childhood, eating her canned apricots straight from the jar. The rum gave it a wonderful grown-up edge and the lime offset the sweetness of the syrup. A perfect end to a hot summer day.

This apricot daiquiri is a delicious way to capture the flavor of apricots at the height of their season. While I’m usually snarfing fresh apricots out of hand at this time of year, the extra step of poaching the fruit is a great flavor intensifier.

That 5-minute poach is brilliant. The brief poaching is not just elegant and simple, it comes close to distilling the fresh taste. This is a pretty drink with great fruit intensity. I could see this drink also working with peaches. The fruit poaches in just a few moments, and they can cool down while you prepare everything else for your guests.

For two of us, we divided the poached apricots into 3 versions of the drink over a few days, starting with the proportions suggested, then adjusting. I used a white rum from Nicaragua, Flor de Caña. Once the poached fruit had completely cooled, I measured the liquid ingredients first (making 2 drinks a batch since there were just the two of us). We carefully drained the excess syrup from the apricots though of course, some clings to the fruit. This was very drinkable though maybe a bit sweet for our taste. In the second batch, we reduced the poaching syrup to 20ml and increased the lime juice to 30ml and the ice to 250g. This brightened the drink and really was right for us. The increased ice gave a colder, more “frozen” daiquiri. In the third batch, we used 20 ml poaching liquid, 40ml lime juice, and 250 g ice. This was lovely, bright, and as tart as you would want it. The leftover syrup will be used for other drinks or over vanilla ice cream.

I then poached a batch of peaches. They all were marked simply as organic yellow peaches, one was freestone the other two were clings. This made a very pleasant daiquiri, though not as intense as the apricot. I reduced the sugar a bit in the syrup to lighten up the sweetness. The resulting drink was delicate in flavor. This will vary with variety and the particular point in the season, so I’d suggest that if the peaches are on the delicate side in terms of flavor, you can bump that up a little with a couple of dashes of peach bitters per drink. Ideally, I would make these with some intensely flavored peaches like the Frog Hollow’s Crimson Lady, O’Henry, or Cal Red. Alas, today’s peaches were less spectacular but still very nice in a gentle way. A perfectly good alternative if apricots disappear. Bottom line—peaches work. If you have intensely flavored ones, all the better. White peaches would go in the more delicate direction.




About David Leite

I count myself lucky to have received three James Beard Awards for my writing as well as for Leite’s Culinaria. My work has also appeared in The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Yankee, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and more.


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4 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Just made these today, Delicious! I used El Dorado Silver rum for the first batch, Think a stronger molasses flavor would be good as well, will make next time with a darker rum!

  2. Back in the 70s, an apricot sour was one of the first things I drank when I turned “legal” (21). The height of sophistication, I thought. This recipe looks like a big improvement!

    1. Hah. Love the way you’re thinking, Mary. I hope you’ll let us know when you do try it!