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Cheers! It’s peach season, which means it’s also bellini season. Bellinis are sparkling Italian cocktails made with two simple ingredients: Prosecco and peach purée. They’re fizzy and refreshing, with more body than your average cocktail.

Bellinis are easy to make, and perfect when you’re hosting brunch or soaking up a lazy summer weekend. They’re a fun alternative to a mimosa, and feel a little more fancy. Maybe because they’re Italian.

Too often, bellinis are made with overly sweet peach nectar or peach liqueur. My bellinis are made with real peach purée, which doesn’t need any added sugar to taste like a treat.

You can make bellinis with defrosted frozen peaches, too. You’ll find instructions for each option below. Are you ready to make bellinis this weekend?

Peach Notes & Tips

Authentic Italian bellinis are made with white peaches. Yet, I had a surplus of yellow peaches and they made beautiful golden bellinis. White peaches must not grow well near me, because they’re always hard and refuse to ripen.

Which brings me to my next point: Great peaches make great bellinis, and lousy peaches make lousy bellinis.

Those are the rules. If you can’t find great peaches, use frozen peaches.

How to Peel Peaches

Peeled peaches make the best peach purée. I tried blending peaches with the skin on, and the purée required straining and didn’t taste quite as good. So, peel your peaches first!

You can simply peel your peaches with a paring knife or vegetable peeler, but you’ll lose some peach juice and flesh along with it. Here’s a better way, and I promise it’s not as much trouble as it sounds:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil.
2. Slice a very shallow, inch-long “x” across the base of each peach.
3. Dunk each peach into the boiling water for about 20 seconds, then remove with a slotted spoon or tongs. (Most will tell you to then dunk the peaches into an ice bath, but I didn’t find that necessary for these purposes.)
4. Peel off the skin, starting at the “x.” It comes off right off. Discard the skin, cut the peach in half, remove the pit, and make purée.

How to Make Bellinis with Frozen Peaches

Good news: You can make bellini cocktails with frozen peaches. You’ll need to use good frozen peaches, not old freezer-burned peaches, lest your cocktails taste like freezer burn.

The only other trick is to let your frozen peaches completely defrost before blending, or they won’t blend. You can defrost them at room temperature in three-and-a-half to four hours, or throw them into the refrigerator overnight.

One upside to using defrosted frozen peaches is that your peach purée will be chilled and ready to serve immediately after blending.

Please let me know how your bellinis turn out in the comments! I hope you like them as much as I do.

Looking for more fizzy summertime cocktails? Here are a few favorites:

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