Serious Salads: Stone Fruits with Ginger-Lime Syrup and Mint

Sliced peaches, nectarines and plums go from simple to sublime when soaked in a refreshing ginger-lime syrup infused with fresh mint. Be sure to let the fruit marinate for at least 45 minutes but not too much longer or the ginger will mellow out.

Plum, Date, Banana, and Maple-Bacon Salad

Mediocre ingredients and an overabundance of tart flavors give the dish a bad name, but with a few simple guidelines, you can start knocking fruit salad out of the park. So consider this recipe a template rather than a set of hard and fast rules. Once you start thinking about each ingredient's role, it's easy to adapt to whatever you have on hand.

Suns 'n Roses (Rum and Stone Fruit Punch)

This porch-appropriate summer sipper is rich and mellow but not too sweet, thanks to a balance of fresh and dried stone fruit, aged rum, and lemon. Adapted from a recipe created by Tommy Quimby for San Francisco's Rich Table, it captures the flavor of ripe peaches and apricots in a simple blended syrup. A little white tea adds volume and delicate floral flavor.

Fruitcake Ice Cream

An ode to fruitcake that's easy to love, with a rum-orange ice cream base and real dried fruit, not chemically candied cherries.

Fall Fruit Punch

Pears, quince, and warm-spiced allspice dram combine for this tiki-inspired fall cocktail.

Smoked-Rosemary Rum Punch

Holding fresh rosemary over the flame of your gas stove (or a candle) lends savory, woodsy flavors to this rum punch. Gold rum adds a rich, velvety sweetness, while overproof rum contributes earthy, musky complexity.

Apricot Rum Fizz

This cocktail is a slightly modified version of Toast's Apricot Fizz. Not that their drinks aren't brilliant, mind, it's just that I personally don't care for spiced rum (I think the "spice" is added by distillers in attempt to mask the lower quality of the rum), and I prefer the sharp sass of ginger beer over ginger ale's plebeian sweetness.

Winter Fruit Salad with Pomegranates

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Salty Maple Buttered Cider

Hot buttered rum is even better with warm cider.

Spiced Cranberry Rum Fizz

Incorporating the classic flavors of cranberry sauce--tart cranberries, the warm spice of orange zest, and a kick of ginger--this drink re-imagines the timeless flavors of the season.