At the risk of getting carried away with the jam recipes, I have just one more…that may beat the last one in flavor.

Peaches + Dark Rum = Holy Goodness.

This started off as peach picking with my little gypsy friend.  She found a place deep in the beauty of our local canyon where there were peaches to be had.  Of course we couldn’t pick all the peaches ourselves, so we hired these two “peach picking extraordinaire’s”:

Needless to say, they covered the low limbs while Violet and I covered the trees.

(Notice our 1/2 helper, strictly hired for eating.)

Once we got all of these beautiful peaches home…they sat in a basket on my patio for a few days.  Somehow I end up almost ruining fruit, but let me share with you my little secret:

The riper the fruit, the better the jam!

Yes, I fell upon this little secret by accident and yet it still makes me panic.  Ripe fruit seems to have a sign on it that says “you have waited to long” which sends me into a mad rush to salvage what I can…and yet it seems to work in my favor.  These peaches sure smelled ‘peachy’ and the cooking began!

I started with about 20 lbs of peaches.  A quick 30 second drop in boiling water and an immediate bath in ice water made for easy peeling.  I made this in 4 lb batches to make it easier to work with.  For every 4 lbs of peaches I used about 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice and about 1.5 to 2 cups of sugar.  I am not gonna lie, these peaches took FOREVER to cook.  I kept testing the jam by putting it in the freezer for a few minutes to see how it would set and I kept pulling out the same liquid I put in.  It probably took 45 minutes on medium heat (sometimes medium/high) for it to finally look like it may actually set.  I was almost to the point of getting desperate and adding something to help it set, but it finally started to show hope.  In the last 15 minutes or so, I added a quarter cup of dark rum.

I was worried about it losing color or taking on a brownish tint, but in fact, it jarred beautifully.  With a 25 minute water bath, it was on its way to the counter looking and smelling fabulous.