PEACH NECTAR

Peach nectar is the juice obtained from pressing the fruit by separating the pulp, to which only water and sugar are added to make the taste and texture more pleasant.

The peach tree belongs to the Rosaceae family. It is a plant native to China, where it is considered a symbol of immortality and is particularly prized for the beauty of its pink flowers. 

The name of the species, however, is linked to Persia, which Greek and Latin authors mistakenly believed to be the peach tree’s country of origin. Today we know that it only arrived in Persia in the first century B.C. from China and that from there it spread throughout the Mediterranean thanks to Alexander the Great. 

Its cultivation also spread to Italy, thanks to the perfect climate of its coasts, where it is still grown in various qualities today.

Legend has it that ‘the first peach tree took root on earth thanks to a fisherman who found the stone in the belly of a fish. He pulled it out and looked at it with curiosity. Although he did not know what it was, he thought it might be a seed and planted it in his garden. A seedling was born, which soon grew into a young tree and in spring filled with pink flowers and then sweet, juicy fruits. Once he had tasted them, the fisherman thought to recall the marine origin of this new fruit by calling it ‘peach’.

The origins of fruit juice are lost in the mists of time. Thousands of years ago, well before the year zero, our ancestors were already producing and consuming drinks made from fruit, especially grapes. 

The first juices more similar to those we know today are more recent, starting in the 16th century, when the Italians, using lemons from the Amalfi Coast, began to produce and market lemonade, a sweet and thirst-quenching drink, in the Middle East via the Indies Route. A few decades later, juices made from other citrus fruits, such as oranges, also began to circulate.

The real success and spread of juices, as we know them today, came in the 18th century, when Scottish physician James Lind began producing fruit extracts, mainly based on citrus fruits, as an effective remedy against scurvy. In fact, Vitamin C is essential for fighting the onset of this disease and raising the body’s immune defences.

This remedy was so effective that in 1867 the Merchant Shopping Act decided that all ships had to carry it on board. At the beginning of the 19th century, Lind himself devised a way to avoid fermentation: using glass bottles sealed with corks, the product could be boiled in water, thus achieving an effect similar to modern pasteurisation. This meant that large quantities could be stored in ships’ galleys, which was essential on long sea voyages as it was impossible to keep fruit and vegetables fresh for so long at the time.