Homemade Peach Brandy
If you have a peach tree and have tons of your own peaches to use up, try making peach brandy. Peach brandy only requires a few ingredients (peaches, sugar, and water) and time for fermentation. I don’t usually enjoy the taste of most liquor (I do however drink light beer and malt beverages), however, this recipe made the best tasting moonshine I have ever tried. I like it more than apple pie moonshine! The method we use produces homemade peach liqueur at about 25% (Fireball is 33% for reference). You can smell the alcohol, however, you cannot taste it (which is why I think it is the best peach moonshine recipe). In fact, this stuff is so good (and so easy to make), we planted more peach trees so that we can make more of our own peach brandy! This recipe can also be diluted a bit to make homemade peach wine.
You can Customize Your Peach Schnapps Recipe
Some people will add cinnamon sticks, or lemon zest to enhance the peach flavor, making a peach cobbler moonshine. You can also add dry yeast to the recipe to jump start the fermentation process (giving you peach schnapps sooner). However, by late summer I try to conserve my time and energy for preserving my vegetable garden, so I prefer to keep it simple (no added hard work). We have tried peeled peaches, quartered and pitted peaches, and whole peaches. The results were nearly identical between the methods. Since I am lazy, I don’t see the need for added work for the same result, so I use clean whole peaches. We usually prepare our peaches, ferment them until the following fall (the perfect time for us is after the fall garden harvest), bottle the finished product into pretty bottles, and give some of them as Christmas gifts (make sure you have enough brandy prepared).
Homemade Peach Moonshine Does Not Need Special Equipment
You do not need tons of expensive equipment to get started making your own alcohol. With this homemade brandy recipe, you only need the ingredients, a large glass jar (Amazon affiliate link), and a cool place to store them. You do not need to buy an expensive stone crock, fruit press, specialty wine yeast, coffee filters, siphons, sanitizing solutions, etc for this peach recipe to work.
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How to Make Peach Brandy
Makes 1 gallon, use the 5X block for a 5 gallon peach brandy recipe.
Best Homemade Peach Brandy Recipe (Easy Recipe)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6 lbs whole peaches (about 10)
- 3 cups honey or sugar (about 2 lbs)
- 1 gallon water (divided, more or less)
Instructions
- Dilute honey in half gallon of hot water. Let cool.
- Place a layer of peaches in the jar.
- Add cooled diluted honey (or layer some sugar to coat the peaches).
- Repeat the process until the jar is 3/4 full.
- Top off with water, leaving at least 3/4" of headspace for bubbles.
- Add water to airlock, and place lid with airlock. ( Or place lid loosely on the jar, allowing fermentation gas to escape.)
- Bubbles should start forming within 24 hours.
- Store for at least 6 months in a cool dark place. Remove liquid from jars, and bottle. You can now enjoy your work!
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What do you do with the water?
Thanks for asking, I’ll edit the recipe. The water would is added to the honey or to top off the jar when using sugar.
Great recipe!
Remarkable!
Great recipe!
Write more recipes, that’s all I have to say.
Great recipe! How long is the peach brandy good for?
When unopened and stored correctly, it can last several years. When opened, store it in the refrigerator for 6 months.
I was just telling my friend about this.
We have totally organic peaches, therefore most have a tiny worm and worm droppings in them. Do you think I can use them without cutting the worms out? Or will they rot before completing the brandy? 😥
There’s an old saying that comes to mind… one bad apple can spoil the whole batch. I would make sure there were no worms or worm holes in the peaches before using. You could probably get away with cutting out the area, saving the rest of the peach. I would cut up the peach, and discard anything that looks like it could be bad. You don’t want to wait for the fermentation to finish, just to find out that the whole batch is rotten.
After all the ingredients have been placed in the wide mouth jar, can a rubber glove be placed over the mouth of jar snuggly?
When the gases escape into the glove they expand the glove, when the glove is fully expanded the brandy is ready for consumption. Is this a possibility?
I don’t know if the rubber glove would stay on without popping. The brandy will ferment for months, and that could potentially be a lot of gas. The goal is to let the gas escape without letting air in, which is why we use an airlock. You can get 2 for $6 on Amazon: Airlock
Use a balloon if you don’t want to spend the $2 on an air lock🙄
How does the fruit not get moldy in the sugar water?
The fruit ferments in the sugar water. The airlock allows gas out, but not air in. The fermentation process allows the sugars (both in the fruit and added) to be broken down to alcohol. The lack of oxygen prevents bacteria and mold from growing. Many factors can prevent the perfect atmosphere for this process, like preservatives, dirt, or other chemicals. So the process is not 100% foolproof, but should work when using proper precautions.
I make homemade wine and have 5 gallons of peach wine fermenting now. I want to try your recipe for a flavor boost with chunks os frozen peaches used to chill. After the 6 month fermentation period is up and fermentation is complete, do you use cheese cloth to separate the liquids from whatever must that remains in the jars?
Chunks of frozen peaches sounds awesome! Cheesecloth would work, I use a mesh strainer. (I find it easier than cheesecloth. I’m sure the metal mesh isn’t great to use with fermentation, but I’m lazy.)
Make sure it’s stainless steel
Can you eat the peaches after removing the liquid?
I have, they are good. I wouldn’t eat too many in one sitting!
Do you need to worry about the gas not escaping with the lid loosely secured to the glass?
The gas should escape as long as the ring on the lid is fingertight… meaning you use just the tips of your fingers to put the ring on. Canning lids are designed to let the pressure out, but not air (or water) in. (Think tight enough to keep the lid on, but loose enough that a 2 year old can open it.)
I’ll have to try this
Question on the peaches….in the recipe it calls for whole peaches yet the picture shows pealed and halfed. All other recipes I have looked at call for diced peaches. So should I be doing something with the peaches here or just layering whole peaches?
We have tried it whole, halved, peeled, pitted, and all of the combinations. The taste is essentially the same, the color is slightly darker whole than peeled and pitted. I’m lazy now and just do whole peaches!
What is alcohol content? Isn’t this peach wine and not brandy?
Our measurement said about it has about 20% alcohol content. Technically this recipe is called mead, which is similar to wine. Wine is made mostly from grapes (with added fruit flavoring), while this does not have a grape base.
Hi. I followed the recipe except i diced my peaches and after only a couple weeks the surface is covered with white mold. I washed my peaches, cut out any blemishes and also stetilized my glass container with boiling water. I have not opened to smell, but i spent an hour dicing the peaches so id like to salvage if possible. Any thoughts?
It should be fine. I would rack it into a new bottle, siphoning off the bottom and leaving the top scum/yeast behind. If it smells rancid, then it might have gone bad. At this point, it should start to smell like alcohol. Store bought fruit will have a coating on the surface, to preserve shelf life. This coating can prohibit yeast from growing and fermenting. If these are store-bought peaches, I would add some wine yeast (Amazon link).
Just put a batch in the primary. Can’t wait to try it.
What do you do with all the sediment that settled at the bottom? Does it need to be removed? If so how?
You remove the settlement by siphoning (Amazon link) the liquid to the flip-top (Amazon link) containers. You would siphon just the liquid, leaving the settlement behind.
Can the alcohol content be increased?
I’m not sure. I would have to look into that.
My mom used to use the left over peach pulp to make a “brandy peach cobbler”. I wish I had her exact recipe. Has anyone tried this?
Awesome recipe!
Fermenting peach brandy now. Can’t wait to try it!
What a great way to enjoy the peach harvest! I’m saving this recipe for next season.
Thank you for sharing
Thank you for sharing! I’m saving this for next summer 🙂
Great recipe
This is an awesome, yet easy recipe.
Can’t wait for my peach tree to produce peaches so that I can try this recipe! Saving this recipe to hopefully try next year.
After 3 years, I finally have peaches growing! I can’t wait to try this recipe. I’m glad I can reduce the recipe to 1/2 gallon, so hopefully I will have enough peaches.
Can I use a plastic fermentation bucket with an airlock instead of a glass carboy? I want to be able to get the peaches in and out of the container and my glass carboys wouldn’t work for that.
Yes! It would be VERY difficult to get whole peaches in and out of the carboy. Best of luck, and let us know how it turns out!
I bought a food-grade bucket from Amazon with an airtight lid. Given that you suggested to someone else that it would be okay to use mason jar type lids, which don’t have air release valves, is an airtight lid okay? Or should I find something else?
It would need to have an airlock during fermentation, to allow the gas to escape without letting fresh air in.