Each summer, visitors to Acre in Auburn, Alabama, who order from the restaurant’s annual Peach Bar menu often glance twice at the far side of the parking lot on their way out of the door.
That’s because the peach in their cocktail may have been picked just hours earlier by the same bartender who shook, stirred, and slipped the drink across the bar.
A row of ten peach trees tucked into the restaurant’s parking lot—supplemented with fruit from neighboring Boozer Farms and Mountain View Orchards—supplies the bounty for the restaurant’s eagerly awaited celebration of Chilton County peach season. “Our ethos as a restaurant is to be as local as possible, to support the farmers and producers around us and to use seasonal ingredients as they come,” says Acre general manager John David Hammond. “And our guests look forward to it every year.”
This year’s Peach Ring Mojito just might be the most whimsical menu addition yet. Built on the foundation of a classic mojito, the cocktail combines a touch of mint and fresh peach juice with a sprinkle of nostalgia. “The idea behind Peach Bar is classic cocktails that everybody’s familiar with, just with a little twist of peach because that’s what people want,” Hammond says.
Part of that twist came not from a farm but from a checkout line at HomeGoods. During a fateful afternoon shopping trip, Hammond and his wife were no match for the maze of miscellaneous goods that lined the walk to the register. They surrendered to a sunset-hued bag of sugar-coated candy rings.
“We broke ’em open as soon as we got in the car, and immediately it took me back to childhood,” Hammond recalls. “So when we were starting to design the Peach Bar menu for this year, I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to put these in, but I’m putting them in something.’”
