Hot Cocktail Ingredient: Dried Fruit

February is a tough month to be a cocktail lover. The last of the winter citrus is quickly disappearing from store shelves, and it's a while until the new spring crop. You can certainly find fruits grown around the world, but they're just not the same as ripe local produce.

While you could stick to all-alcohol drinks — like Manhattans, Negronis, and Martinis — we have another idea: dried fruit.

You can now buy a range of dehydrated fruits, which you can use to infuse an array of spirits, from vodka to bourbon. (The process is incredibly easy and your concoction only needs to rest for about a day.) But before you start experimenting, we suggest you try these two recipes from top bartender and Liquor.com advisory board member Aisha Sharpe.

Her delicious Mango Brava Daiquiri is a blast of sunshine and calls for flavoring Caña Brava Rum (co-created by Liquor.com advisory board members Simon Ford and Dushan Zaric) with dried mango slices. It's so good, you may want to make it year-round.

We also recommend you fix her Beefeater Gin-based Peach Collins that includes a simple syrup flavored with, you guessed it, dried peaches. After you master these tipples, you can spend the rest of the winter working on your own formulas. Cheers!

Click here for the Mango Brava Daiquiri recipe. 

This story was originally publised at The Hot List: Dried Fruit. For more stories ilke this, subscribe to Liquor.com for the best in all things cocktails and spirits.