For a few years now we have been trying out our own style of boozy cherries. These rich tasting bites are a natural evolution of h's love of all things sour cherry. The interesting thing about making your own style of cocktail cherry is that it really is a choose your own adventure of flavors. Do you want something dark and rich, or light and sweet? Cinnamon, clove, vanilla or perhaps more of an earthy cocoa striking your fancy?  Its all there for you to try.

The best part? If you're not pleased with them for your cocktails, try them over ice cream or with a piece of smoked duck.

As with all delicious fresh tastes, the most important ingredient is the fruit itself. Being in Maryland, June is the right time for cherry picking and this year has been phenomenal for all kinds of produce. The strawberries have been almost cloyingly ripe, the blueberries plump and tart, and the blackberries are already bursting with promise. Fortunately, for this batch of cherries, h and his wife were kind enough to pick over 15 lbs (!) of local sour cherries and provided us with the choicest, pitted fruits. 

Once you have the fruit, you're off to a wonderful start! The rest is just determining your main spices, the proportion of alcohol to boozyify it with, and of course the sugar content. I tend to keep things less sweet - in drinks and with food. Particularly with fruit based recipes, I try to let the main ingredient take center stage and not be overpowered by too much added sugar.

See what you think about the recipe below. It is only the first posting of what will become many different iterations on boozy cherries. As always, you should try out your own flavors and proportions to suite your own palate and drink profile. While I am pleased with these, I can't wait to try h's which are soaking in their own delicious bath of flavor. Enjoy!

Recipe for Boozy Cherries Rev. #001

Ingredients: 

• 1 lb fresh, handpicked sour cherries (pitted by a good friend ;^)
• 1/2 cup Panella sugar
• 1/2 cup H2O
• 1 Ceylon cinnamon stick (broken into smaller pieces)
• Pinch of fresh ground Nutmeg
• 9 black peppercorns
• .25 tsp ground Allspice
• 1/2 Vanilla bean, split
• 1/2 c Armagnac 
• 1/2 c Luxardo Maraschino 
• 1/2 c High Rye Bourbon (such as Redemption)
• 1/2 Pint Wide-mouthed canning jars (4 or 5)

Steps:

1. Sterilize your jars and have them ready for the fruit mixture. 
2. Make your simple syrup by combining the equal parts sugar and water in a pan. Bring to a low simmer until fully dissolved.
3. Scrape and add the vanilla bean and spices to the simple syrup and simmer gently for a few minutes to bring the flavors out.
4. Add the cherries and alcohol. Stir and bring to a simmer.
5. Pull the cherry mixture off heat. Ladle equal portions of cherries and boozy yumminess into each jar.
6. Add the sterilized lid, seal, and process for ~15 minutes.

Once the jarred cherries have cooled, you will want to wait a few weeks to let the flavors pull together before serving them. Be strong!

Enjoy in your favorite cocktail. Need I mention a classic Old Fashioned or Manhattan?  (I thought not)

r.