Letting peeled and pitted peaches soak in bourbon for up to a week yields a deliciously aromatic spirit perfect for mixing into cocktails, while the resulting bourbon-macerated fruit gets transformed into a silky, flavorful filling for easy fried hand pies that use wonton wrappers in place of more traditional pie dough. It’s important to cook down the infused fruit for at least ten minutes. That’s enough time to burn off much of the alcohol, so it’s safe to fry the pies in hot oil, but not so much time that you lose the bourbon’s distinctive notes of oak, smoke, caramel, and vanilla—flavors that beautifully highlight the sweet perfume of summer peaches.
Make sure to remove air pockets from the pies as you seal the wrappers, and crimp the dampened edges of the dough to ensure a tight seal, which keeps the filling inside the pies and not bubbling and sputtering into the hot oil while they’re frying. A dusting of powdered sugar or a sprinkling of plain or cinnamon sugar adds a lovely finishing touch to these crowd-pleasing sweet treats.