The product of the fermentation of the juice of the peach is known as "peach brandy." Generally this brandy has the properties of the distillates from fermented fruits, but has characteristic flavors and odors, which distinguish it from other fruit brandies. It has a special flavor due to benzaldehyde which is quite abundant in the peach kernel.

In the United States peach brandy has not been made so long and so extensively as apple brandy, but it is produced at the present time in considerable quantities. As in the case of apples, the peaches may be previously dried and subsequently subjected to fermentation, but this impairs the quality of the distilled product.

The wide expansion of the peach industry in the United States, in the South, especially in Georgia before the advent of prohibition, increases the problem of the utilization of very large and abundant crops. Often the transportation facilities are not sufficient to move such perishable properties as peaches with sufficient rapidity to save the whole crop. In this case distilleries would be extremely advantageous for using up the parts which could not be shipped, or those portions of the crop which are too ripe at the time of gathering to bear transportation. These very ripe peaches would be better suited for the production of industrial brandy than those less mature and suitable for transportation.

Ordinarily the market value of good peaches is so far superior to the market value of brandy that there would be no necessity of distillation. It is only in the cases which have been mentioned of superabundance, or in the production of fruit too ripe for transportation that a distillation of the product would be advisable. A distillery which could be utilized for other purposes during part of the year, in this case, would prove profitable for peaches, but, if the distillery could only be utilized during the ordinary time of the ripening of the peach crop, say from two to two and one-half months, it would be hardly profitable to invest very much in the erection of a factory. Since prohibition bids fair in the near future to become nation wide, it is better to seek an outlet for superabundant peaches in canning factories or drying kilns, or for denatured alcohol.

Ageing

Peach brandy must be aged in order to secure its best properties, as in the case of other distillates. The principal trouble with the consumption of peach brandy is the same as with apple brandy, that is, its lack of maturity. It is expensive to keep a product 4 or 6 years before it is offered to the market, and hence, in the case of smaller farmers, no attempt is made to store the product in a government bonded warehouse. It is sold as soon as possible after manufacture.