Bourbon Peach Galette

If you're like me, peaches are the flavor of summer! I grew up in Colorado where Palisade Peaches would come in boxes every summer from the western slopes, and the sweet sticky juice from these beauties would run down your chin no matter how you tried to contain it. Here in Arizona the peaches are just as delicious, and this year we took a day to get out of the house to go get some!

We visited Apple Annie's to go peach picking, a place we visit a couple times a year for the seasonal vegetables and fruit. Apple Annie's has an orchard containing a variety of pears, peaches, apples, plums, pluots, and cherries. Just a little further away from the orchard they have several fields and offer produce such as sweet corn, green beans, okra, zucchini, squash, and pumpkins. I was telling my husband as we wandered the orchards how lucky we are to be able to take advantage of seasonal fresh produce! Truly that is how people are intended to eat, and the local produce simply tastes so much better than storebought. Arizona is well known for its citrus crops, but certain areas have other amazing goodies. Willcox, AZ is just such an area! In addition to Apple Annie's and other fruit/veggie farms, Willcox is also home to some amazing wine vineyards, and even nuts such as pecans. We stopped to get some of those too, I swear Lee's Pecans are the sweetest pecans I have ever tasted, and they are not so bitter.

When I have time, I love to gather these seasonal harvests and preserve them. This year we went the freezer route as its much less labor intensive than canning. The last big peach harvest we did was in 2020, and I canned several dozen cans of peaches and pears. I have to say, peeling peaches is the biggest pain in the butt ever, and I absolutely hate doing it. Turns out to freeze them though, its still better to peel them, so I didn't escape that work this year either! But rather than freeze our whole bounty this time, I decided to use some fresh to make this delicious galette!

Galette is basically a sort of tart, usually made up of puff pastry, some kind of fruit, mildly sweetened, and best served with ice cream! In the past I have also made blueberry galette which comes together beautiful when the sweet blueberries reduce down to a sweet syrupy glaze on the pastry. This recipe is crafted from several other recipes, and brings together the seasonal fresh peaches, sweet bourbon, and pecans. I only made a small fire on my stove trying to reduce the bourbon... Make sure to use LOW heat and let it simmer SLOWLY, don't rush the alcohol or you'll get to enjoy the little kitchen bonfire I did! Another note on the bourbon, be sure to pick a sweeter, oaky bourbon to really pair with the sweet/tart peaches. Personally I used Smoke Wagon Small Batch Bourbon and found it to be a great flavor. But enough talk, lets get to the recipe I'm sure you're dying to see!