February 20, 2025
We received a large jar of whole skinned peaches in syrup right before Christmas, the Zalea Gourmet Peach In Light Syrup, 94 oz from Costco. Around New Year’s, I opened it and we started eating them. The problem was there wasn’t room in the fridge.
I knew as long as the peaches stayed submerged in the syrup they’d be fine, so I used weights for a while. When the weights stopped working I just started shaking the jar to drench the floating peaches in syrup. Many times a day.
Within a few days I’d already noticed the peach flavor changing. There were hints of alcohol and fermentation happening. Because of this I knew they were pretty safe to keep eating. Soon after that I also started seeing CO2 bubbles on the surface and the jar lid was under pressure and I was burping it. I did not want any sort of fermentation explosions; been there, done that, a few times, luckily no broken glass yet, knocking on wood. With all that surface area, I figured it was probably getting a little sour too.
The day before the starter share I hosted in Long Beach on World Ferment Day, I used the last two peaches to flavor some Jun tea. Then I poured the liquid into an extra large flip top bottle and took it to the starter share. I may or may not have let people taste it. They may or may not have liked it, and at least one person didn’t ask for the recipe. Since it was a wild accidental ferment, I recounted the whole story of how it happened.
As someone who did taste it (for the first time, not with two other people, and with a warning that this was a blind test and I had no idea how it would turn out), I just thought it was fun. A little peachy, a little sweet, the flavor of wild yeast alcohol, with a dash of sour. Almost a sour Pêche lambic or sour peach cider. I’m happy this accident happened.