Bellini

Name: Bellini
Yield: makes 1 drink
Ingredients: 1 ounce Boiron or homemade white peach purée (see below); 4 1/2 ounces chilled Zardetto Prosecco; 1/2 ounce Massenez crème de pêche or peach liqueur; 4 fresh white peaches, skin on, cut in half and pitted; 8 raspberries; 4 tablespoons superfine sugar; 2 ounces water; 2 ounces freshly squeezed lemon juice; (makes about 2 cups)

January 24, 2012

Image may contain Cutlery Fork and Plant

Photo by Chelsea Kyle

The story of the Bellini begins during Prohibition with American playboy Harry Pickering, who drank at the Europa Hotel in Venice with bartender Giuseppe Cipriani. Pickering’s family had cut off his funds in a last-ditch effort to get him back home and quit drinking. Pickering asked Cipriani for a loan of 10,000 lire—the equivalent of $61,000 today—to get his affairs in order. Cipriani lent him his life savings, only to not hear a word from Pickering for over a year. Legend has it that when Pickering returned to the bar, he ordered a drink and paid Cipriani 50,000 lire as a show of gratitude so he could open his own bar. In 1931, Harry’s Bar in Venice opened and the Bellini cocktail was created there shortly afterward.

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