Here on the coast of South Carolina, we’re so enamored of our sparklingly fresh oysters, shrimp, crabs and fish, that sometimes we forget the wealth of foods that upstate South Carolina has to offer: amazing heirloom beans and tomatoes, sweet-as-honeysuckle muscadine grapes, superb roadside barbecue, and perhaps most importantly, mind-blowingly delicious peaches. True, Georgia is officially “The Peach State,” but ask any upstate farmer: they’ve all got stories of Georgia families who cross the border into South Carolina to buy peaches, because The Palmetto State’s–and particularly York County’s–peaches are sweeter.

We offer this recipe, a Southern spin on the bellini, a classic Italian aperitif, as an Ode to the Upstate. When you’re in Charleston, try to find peaches grown in York County at markets like the Vegetable Bin and the Piggly-Wiggly. Occasionally, we can’t find upstate peaches in Charleston markets in August, so we’ll drive upstate to our favorite source for York County’s best, Sanders’ Peach Stand, 2275 Filbert Highway (321) in Filbert, SC. Dori Sanders, who owns the farm with three siblings, may be the only peach farmer in America whose novel, Clover (set on a peach farm, of course), has been translated into eight languages and appeared on best-seller lists in Japan. While there are always a starstruck few making the pilgrimage to buy signed copies of her books, locals visit the open-air woodshed for the quality of the Sanders family peaches. If you go–and we recommend you do–don’t forget to pass through Gaffney, South Carolina, on the way and take a photo of the peach-shaped water tower pictured above.