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Cherry liqueur

By Andrew | October 18, 2007

A few months ago some friends returned from a trip to Modesto with a freezerbag full of cherries in tow. I could have made a pie or ice cream or something out of them, but I figured why not have a go at actually making a liqueur out of them. Back in high school I’d had a very sweet cherry liqueur at a friend’s house that was from a family recipe and I never thought to get their recipe before I lost touch with them so I was pretty much on my own with trying this out.

I hunted around on the internet for a while and read a lot of recipes, most of which seemed to revolve around the obvious ingredients of cherries, vodka and sugar. I found one variation that listed brandy as an ingredient so I figured I’d add a touch of that for good measure. The actual procedure for making the stuff is easy, just wash and slit the cherries, put the cherries and sugar in a jar and then top with vodka. After that just let it sit for a few months, give it an occasional shake and then filter it.

I ended up just using a coffee filter and a funnel to filter the liqueur into a Glenlivet bottle that I had. The liqueur that filtered out wasn’t the bright red that I remembered from my childhood, it was more of a rusty brown. The flavor of the final liqueur wasn’t as rich as I’d remembered it although it’s quite palatable once you get past the subtle essence of cherry nyQuil. While I won’t be handing out the end result for Christmas, for a first effort I’m going to call it a success. Changes for next time: more cherries, more sugar, less brandy. I also didn’t see what kind of cherries these were and didn’t taste them before I used them so they could very well be sour cherries as opposed to the sweet that I imagine my friend’s family used.

I think I’m going to try to replicate an espresso vodka one of the restaurants I frequent makes in house next.

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