Early September marks the beginning of the transition to fall and a last chance to enjoy some of summer’s great treats like fresh fruit from a local farm or orchard. For many, apricots, peaches and other stone fruit, so named for their large pits or “stones,” are at the top of the list.
One of the things that makes these fruits great is their versatility and the range of flavors they offer. Depending on the type and variety, flavors like sweet, tart, floral, tropical, musky and even creamy are often mentioned when describing them. You can bring out their sweetness by grilling them, use their acidity to brighten up anything from cheeses to roasts, or let the juicy combination of the two cut through the heat of a salsa or spice rub.
This range of flavors is what makes stone fruit a great complement to our all-natural, organically grown CBD vapor oil and an easy pair with a wide range of beverages. So grab a Stone Fruit Mini Vapor Pen or Cartridge, check out the complementary food and drink options below, and make summer last as long as you can.
Albariño, Burrata, Peaches and Seafood
Albariño, from the Ria Baixas region on the coast in northern Spain, is one of the great summer wines. Given its origin, it’s a natural to go with any type of simply prepared seafood or shellfish. Albariño often described as being loaded with the flavors of apricots, peaches, tropical fruits and honey. But don’t get us wrong, it’s by no means sweet! It has a level of freshness and acidity that can sometimes make it feel almost effervescent on your tongue and it carries a bit of salinity from the salt air it’s grown in. These characteristics also help it balance out creamy cheeses and richer seafoods.
Best of all, Albariño (or Alvahrino, as it’s known when produced in nearby Portugal) is a bargain, with high-quality wines widely available from $12 to $15. Albariños from La Cana, Martin Codax and Burgans all fit the bill.
So if you’re going for that summery seaside feeling, grab your favorite fish for the grill, steam some mussels or clams or make a lobster dish. On the side, put a twist on the classic Caprese with this Tomato, Peach and Burrata Salad. (Make it your own by adding your favorite greens or a handful of nuts.) Break out your Stone Fruit Mini Vapor Pen and chill a bottle of Albariño. Enjoy!
Not Your Everyday Chips and Beer
If you’re feeling more of a “grillin’ and chillin’” or casual vibe, there’s certainly plenty of room for our Stone Fruit vapes and some beverages that are easy to take on the go and pop the top on when it’s time for fun.
This time of year, your local brewpub and many widely distributed microbrew brands may have peach- or apricot-flavored beers or hard ciders available. Even the increasingly popular hard seltzer makers are getting into the act. If you can’t find one to your liking, you’ll often find a hint of stone-fruity flavor in many of the better made IPAs on the market—there’s too many to name, but those from Ballast Point from our home state of California, Oskar Blues from Colorado (where we source some of our hemp) and Delaware’s Dogfish Head are widely available and highly rated.
And, if you want to try the real Champagne of beers… check out a Lindeman’s Lambic Peche. Made in Belgium, Lambic beers are fermented naturally, flavored with different fruits (often cherry, raspberry or peach aka peche in French-speaking Belgium), barrel-aged and sold in cork-topped bottles. They are low in alcohol, lightly carbonated and big on flavor.
Try any of the above with this Peach and Cucumber Salsa, which goes great with chips or just about any grilled or roasted vegetable, fish or white meat.
Riesling and… Just About Anything
For most of us, Riesling is a tough wine to love. The elaborate Germanic names, usually printed in gothic type on oddly shaped bottles, can be off-putting. The massive popularity of Blue Nun in the ’70s and ‘80s, one of the first popular imported wines and a precursor to fads like White Zinfandel and Pinot Grigio, left people who remember with the impression that “sweet” was its best feature.
But in recent years, Riesling has enjoyed a renaissance among wine lovers and become known in some circles as “sommeliers’ favorite wine.” That’s because, like our stone fruit friends, great Rieslings provide an incredible mix of competing and complementary flavors. Yes, they are sweeter than many white wines, but, like the best ripe peaches, the best Rieslings offset that with acidity (tartness) and flavors like minerals, apple and slate.
Rieslings go great with a huge range of foods—from sushi and Chinese takeout to the foods of their ancestral homelands in Germany, Austria and Alsace like pork, sausage and asparagus.
Great Rieslings can be found at a range of prices and, today, from all over the world -- places as far afield as Australia, California and the even the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. For our money, though, some of the most accessible are from Alsace, a province of France along its border with Germany.
There, the Hugel family makes a range of dry (i.e., not sweet) Rieslings from their basic Classic to top of line single vineyard or “cru” offerings that are some of the top-rated wines in the world. There is no doubt they know what they are doing: The Hugels have been making wine in Alsace for 13 generations, over 350 years. And they’re relative bargains, ranging from the widely available Classic for about $25 to various Cru’s priced at $100 plus.
If you want a meal that your friends and family will still be talking about next summer, try this Pork Loin Reuben, which brings together traditional Alsatian flavors in a twist on a classic New York deli sandwich. Add Riesling and a Bloom Farms CBD Stone Fruit vape, and take the evening moment to soak up oohs, aahs and Instagram likes from those near and far.
Last, but not least, if you are looking for something sweet to go with any of these (we know you are) and have been fine-tuning your baking skills during our collective time at home, try this French Apricot Tart for a delicious exclamation point on your end-of-summer hurrah.
