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Here's how to make Thom Eagle's DIY aperitif - fig leaf wine...
Crush and tear clean fresh fig leaves and fill a 1 litre jar with them. You will smell the flavour coming out of them.Ìý
When the jar is full to the top, cover with 200g of white sugar. Or less to taste.Ìý
Pour over a whole bottle of white wine. Fresh, simple drinking wines are best, nothing to powerful.
Add 75ml of vodka. Thom uses homemade fig vodka, but ordinary vodka will do.
Muddle to dissolve the sugar and put the lid on the jar.
Leave on a shelf for around 3 days, before carefully straining and bottling. You can squeeze the leaves to get as much flavour from them as possible.
Serve cold, either straight with ice, or as a spritz with sparkling water.

300g tin black olives in brine, drained

3 - 4 tablespoons capers, rinsed

½ - 1 large sprig rosemary, leaves only

4-6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

4-6 tablespoons olive oil

55g tin anchovies in olive oil (optional)

juice of ½ a lemon

glug of brandy

plenty of freshly ground black pepper

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Blitz everything together in the blender or the food processor until well combined but still retaining some texture. Or, if you prefer, you can chop everything by hand, then pound it in a pestle and mortar for a coarser paste. Taste and add more lemon juice, olive oil or pepper if needed. Cover tightly and refrigerate until you need it.

This cherry wine or 'Guignolet' is fromÌýDiana Henry's book 'Food From Plenty', Octopus Publishing Group.

Fruit liqueurs and ‘wines’ are a wonderful way of capturing summer – doesn’tÌýcherry wine seem lovely, even before you’ve tasted it? – and they are the easiestÌýkind of ‘preserve’ you can make. Cherries are usually expensive, but every so oftenÌýyou come across a mountain being sold cheaply in a street market. That’s the timeÌýto make this. Cherry wine is a French aperitif. Serve it chilled in small glasses (aÌýfresh cherry hanging on the side of the glass doesn’t go amiss! – it is, after all, aÌýpretty and romantic drink). You can add sparkling white wine to make a sort ofÌýcherry kir, or sparkling water to make a spritzer.

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Makes about 1.2 litres

500g (1lb 2oz) unblemished pitted cherries

1 bottle light red wine

300g (10½oz) caster sugar

75ml (2½fl oz) kirsch

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1 Heat the cherries in a saucepan with the wine and sugar, stirring to help the sugarÌýdissolve. Bring just up to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer gently forÌý5 minutes. Cool, add the kirsch, cover and leave for 2 days.

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2 Strain and pour into sterilized bottles and add a screw top or cork.ÌýThe boozy cherries left behind are delicious with chilled rice pudding, or used to makeÌýa filling for a summer sponge (spoon them on to a layer of whipped cream, or aÌýmixture of mascarpone and crème fraîche).

Spritz Life?ÌýTalia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau are authors of 'Spritz: Italy's Most Iconoic Aperitivo Cocktail' published by Ten Speed Press.Talia is Editor-in-chief of drinks magazine

is a food writer specialising in food and drink of Provence, France. She is based in California. She is author of Aperitif: Recipes for Simple Pleasures in the French Style published by Chronicle Books.

is a food and drink writer and has published two books on drinks, 'Make Mine a Martini' and 'A Glass of Sherry & a Little Plate of Tapas'

Thomas Eagle is sous chef at Ìýin Suffolk and blogs at

aims to celebrate the French aperitif as an 'art de vivre'

Jack Adair-Bevan is a creator of Ìýfrom near Bristol