The Best Way To Add Fresh Fruit To Cocktails Requires A Little Planning

It is simple enough to whip up a cocktail with the spirits and additives you have sitting in your home bar, but some of the best flavors in your mixed drink require a bit more consideration. Fruity beverages commonly call for fresh fruit, and how you blend those into your drink is key. We spoke to Jordan Hughes, a cocktail maker who runs High-Proof Preacher and author of "Twist: Your Guide to Creating Inspired Craft Cocktails," to get some insight into how to make produce shine in flavorful cocktails.

Hughes explained that while some fruits are combined into mixed drinks more frequently than others, any fruit used should share one characteristic. "A ton of cocktails call for citrus (lime, lemon, orange or grapefruit are most common) so using these fresh are essential for the best results," he said. When citrus is at its freshest, you can more fully appreciate the sweet and sour notes it lends to a cocktail. The vibrancy of orange juice in a tequila sunrise and the zest of lime juice in a three-ingredient dark and stormy are somewhat lost if the fruit isn't at its highest quality.

Citrusy beverages are sublime, but plenty of other produce works well in mixed drinks. According to Hughes, "Other fresh fruit like berries, melons, etc. can be fun to experiment with as well but are often incorporated into cocktails in different ways (like purées, syrups and infusions)." Infused simple syrup properly stored in the fridge lasts for a few weeks, but when using straight fruit juice, don't let it sit around that long.

Infused simple syrup is great to have on hand in advance, but fresh fruit juice for cocktails is another story. Hughes said, "Fresh citrus does tend to lose its zest or freshness within a few hours of being juiced. Get a small hand juicer in order to juice these fruits individually, and use the juice immediately." If you plan on prepping batch cocktails ahead of time, you will want to add fresh juice as you serve the drinks for the most flavorful results.

If you plan on incorporating a fruit purée into your cocktails — like perhaps a peach purée for exquisite Bellinis — you have a little more wiggle room regarding when it should be used, but not very much. To get the most flavor into your mixed drinks, use homemade fruit purée within a day or two. That time frame allows you to prepare the most flavorful element of your homemade cocktails slightly in advance if you are entertaining guests. That way, you can show them that fruit can be so much more than a cocktail garnish.