Brandied Cherries
Brandied cherries are a home bar essential. Manhattans are just incomplete without a brandied cherry, and nothing beats the taste of homemade.
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My recipe is super easy with only 4 ingredients. Store bought brandied cherries don’t even play in the same league as these bad boys. Once you try them, you will never buy them again.
You’ll need the following equipment:
Ingredients:
Sour Cherries
Brandy
Once sour cherries start showing up at the farmers market, I make sure I stock up!
These beauties are only available for a short period of time, so I always buy a bunch and make these brandied cherries while they’re fresh and freeze the rest to make a pie for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
While it is possible to make these with your standard sweet cherries, I think sour cherries work best.
50g of sugar
125 g of brandy
2/3 cup of water
150 g of sour cherries
A sterilized jar or swing top container with an airtight lid.
A small saucepan
First, I wash the cherries then remove the stems and pits. You can use tweezers to extract the pits or poke the pit through the other side using a chop stick. I prefer using tweezers to preserve the shape of the cherry. I’ll pour the cherries into the sterilized jar - the one I’m going to store them in.
Next, to my sauce pan I’ll add 50g of sugar, 1 cinnamon stick, 2/3cup of water, and about 100g of brandy. I’ll bring it all to a simmer, then remove from the heat.
Take out the cinnamon stick and let them cool to room temperature.
After the brandy syrup has cooled, I’ll pour it over the cherries in the jar, and top it off with the remaining 25g of brandy.
You can make these shelf stable by boiling the jar in water to seal, or you can just pop them into the fridge, and they will last for at least a year.
These cherries need to sit and marinate for at least 4 months before using, but they are definitely worth the wait and will be ready just in time for the holidays! They make great holiday gifts- if you can bear the idea of sharing them!
Brandied Cherries:
50g of sugar
1 cinnamon stick
125 g of brandy
2/3 cup of water
150 g of pitted sour cherries
Method:
Add sugar, cinnamon, water and 100g of brandy to a saucepan over low heat. Let mixture come to a simmer, then remove from heat. Once cooled, remove the cinnamon stick and pour the spiced brandy syrup over the pitted sour cherries. Add the remaining 25g of brandy to the jar, seal the jar and keep in the refrigerator for 4 months. These cherries should keep for a year.
