By Tiffany McDuffie
There’s something about the month of August that makes me want to slow down a little.
Maybe it’s because summer is coming to an end, and these dog days seem to pass faster than any others. Summer hasn’t ended, but somehow it doesn’t feel like summer anymore. August exists in this strange in-between, holding onto late sunsets and long, hot afternoons while simultaneously catapulting us toward fall. It’s a transitional month. One that makes you want to hang on just a little tighter to whatever summer has left.
Recently, here in Southern Pines, we celebrated Peach Week, and man, I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older, but damn if it didn’t get me in my feelings.
There’s something about celebrating local that just hits the soul differently. It’s during events like these that you see people who might otherwise have very little in common come together over one shared experience. We celebrate the farmers who grow our food. We try dishes from local restaurants. We enter baking competitions, spread blankets across lawns to listen to local musicians while all the kids dance around, wander through car shows, and spend a few hours enjoying the place we call home.
Together.
Timeless Traditions
It got me thinking about where I grew up, in a small East Texas town called Texarkana. There, August comes with a similar tradition: the Watermelon Festival. For several days, people from all over come together to celebrate the agricultural community. There are competitions, concerts, car shows and more activities than I could list if I tried. But the celebration doesn’t stay contained within the festival grounds. It ripples through the community and into our schools.
One of those “ripples” is the Watermelon Supper. Students, teachers, staff and families from area schools gather to eat, reconnect and kick off another school year. Football players are introduced alongside cheerleaders, HighSteppers, band members and coaches. It is school spirit, Southern pride and community all rolled into one late-summer evening.
And because some loyalties never leave you: shout out to Texas High. Go Tigers.
Looking back, I don’t think I fully appreciated what traditions like that meant when I was growing up. As a kid, you think you’re showing up for watermelon, your friends, the football team or whatever else happens to matter as a teen.
Then you grow up. You move away.
And somewhere along the way, you realize those gatherings were doing something much bigger. They were teaching us where we belonged. They deepened and strengthened our roots.
Peach Week brought some of those memories flooding back and got me wondering about the traditions tucked away in other small towns and communities across America. The festivals that have been happening for decades. The recipes families refuse to change. The county fairs, fish fries, oyster roasts, harvest festivals and Friday night football games that people plan their calendars around year after year. Different towns celebrate different things, but underneath it all, I think we’re celebrating the same thing. Home.
The Old Fashioned Hits Home
Some things endure for the same reason traditions do. Not because they never change, but because there’s something at their core worth holding onto. For me, the Old Fashioned is one of those things.
There’s something timeless about it. No frills. No noise. Just whiskey, sugar and bitters. It’s been showing up in one form or another for generations, and that consistency is part of its character.
But for Peach Week, I wanted to lean into something a little more seasonal. Something that still respects the foundation of the Old Fashioned but gives way to where we are in the year, standing in that doorway between summer and fall.
So I started thinking about peaches and how to put August into an Old Fashioned.
The base of any good Old Fashioned is good whiskey. And since no two whiskey drinkers have exactly the same palate, Four Roses felt like a natural fit. With two mash bills and five proprietary yeast strains, the distillery creates ten distinct bourbon recipes, each bringing something a little different to the table.
For this cocktail, I reached for Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon.
Four Roses Bourbon
There’s something fitting about using a bourbon with roots stretching back more than a century in a cocktail built around the idea of tradition. Four Roses has endured through generations of American whiskey history, and Small Batch itself is built by bringing together four of the distillery’s distinct bourbon recipes. Different components come together to create something greater than any one of them on its own.
Four Roses Small Batch sits at 90 proof, giving it enough structure to stand up in a whiskey-forward cocktail while still leaving room for the other ingredients to show themselves.
The bourbon brings a combination of ripe fruit, caramel and oak, with a gentle spice running underneath. Those fruit-forward characteristics are particularly important here. Rather than forcing peach into a bourbon that fights against it, the peach has something already waiting for it in the glass.
Peach and bourbon, after all, aren’t exactly strangers. The vanilla, caramel and toasted oak character that comes from time in a new charred oak barrel naturally plays well with ripe stone fruit. Add baking spice into the equation, and you’re already halfway toward flavors that feel like they belong in a pie cooling on a kitchen table.
The trick with a spin on an Old Fashioned (or any cocktail, for that matter) is knowing when to stop. Don’t cover the whiskey. Highlight it.
I didn’t want to make a peach cocktail with some bourbon thrown into it. So I took that idea and built it into a peach Old Fashioned. The base stays true to form: bourbon, bitters and a touch of sweetness. But instead of ignoring the season, we bring it into the glass.
It’s not about turning the Old Fashioned into something new. It’s about enjoying the season and letting August sit in the glass with it. My goal for this variation was to celebrate the here and now while giving a nod to community and roots … to all those little things that eventually come to mean home. And maybe, with time, create something that becomes a tradition of its own.
Peach Old Fashioned
- 2 ounces Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon
- ½ ounce peach simple syrup
- 2 dashes Angostura bitters
- 2 dashes peach bitters
- Fresh peach slice
- Orange peel
Add the bourbon, peach simple syrup and bitters to a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir until properly chilled and diluted, then strain over a large cube in a rocks glass.
Express an orange peel over the surface of the drink to release the oils. Garnish with a fresh slice of ripe peach.
