My gran has a peach tree in her backyard, and every summer we would end up with boxes of ripe peaches landing on our kitchen bench just begging to be eaten. Personally, I am a huge fan of stone fruit. Peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries, these flavours really epitomise summer to me. But there are only so many peach crumbles, peaches with fresh yoghurt, peaches on your breakfast cereal, and peaches in your lunchbox that a girl can handle, so invariably there ends up being a few lonely, overripe pieces of fruit rolling round in the bottom of the box that no one is interested in. I think most people are familiar with preserving fruit in jars, but this peach and mint vinegar is something a bit special—it’s a great way to use up overripe fruit that might otherwise end up on the compost heap, and is delicious as a fruity, tangy dressing on green salads.
Depending on how ripe your peaches are, you will end up with around half the volume of vinegar you start with as your infusion.