Boozy, fruity, and delicious these brandied cherries are a fantastic addition to your favorite cocktail. If you have the luxury of delicious fresh cherries, you’ll want to make this luxurious treat.

I’ve never been a huge fan of maraschino cherries. The artificially bright red, flavor-lacking garnishes just don’t do cherries justice. These brandied cherries are so much more delicious and make the perfect garnish.

Beautiful, scarlet flesh, an intense cherry flavor, and a rich cherry syrup is what these are made of. None of the artificial likes of your typical maraschino cherry.

These cocktail cherries are similar to fancy Luxardo cherries that you can purchase at the grocery store. However, they’re customizable, less expensive, and the perfect use for fresh sour cherries, or even sweet cherries if that’s what you have on hand.

What are brandied cherries?

I’ve been finding myself messing with alcohol and fruit a lot here lately. My favorite brandied apricot preserves, brandied pear jam, and these brandied cherries have all been made recently in our kitchen.

Alcohol has been used to preserve fruit for a long time. The tradition likely developed in Germany with rumtopf.

Brandied cherries use this age-old tradition with the simplicity of just three ingredients to preserve them. Fresh cherries, brandy, and sugar. While it sounds simple, these three ingredients will make the best cherries you’ve ever tasted.

You also have the added bonus of not having to do anything but stick these in the refrigerator. They’ll keep for a long time in there.

How to make brandied cherries

I prefer to keep this brandied cherry recipe simple with just the alcohol, sugar, and fresh fruit. However, you can also add in spices if you desire.

Vanilla bean or extract is a great addition. Some people like cinnamon sticks, cloves, or cardamom pods. Do each jar different, do them all plain, whatever you want.

This is by far the quickest, easiest preserving recipe I’ve ever made. As I said, you really only need 3 ingredients. The whole process only takes about twenty minutes.

Prepare the cherries. Wash the fresh cherries and dry them off a bit.

To make authentic brandied cherries, trim the stems and leave the pits. I chose to remove the stems and pit the cherries. I do this whenever I’m preserving cherries, regardless of the method. However, it’s a personal choice.

If you want to pit them and you don’t have a cherry pitter, you can simply remove the stem and take a sturdy straw and push it in where the stem was removed until the pit slides out the other side.

If you choose to leave the pits, whether you leave the stems or not, you should pierce each cherry with a toothpick to prevent splitting.

Make the sugar syrup. In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat combine sugar and water until the sugar dissolves.

Add the cherries. After the sugar has dissolved, place the prepared cherries into the saucepan and continue simmering them for two minutes.

Strain. After two minutes, strain the cherries, but reserve the simple syrup. Allow the syrup and cherries to cool to room temperature.

Pack into jars. After everything has cooled off, tightly pack the cherries into a pint mason jar. Combine brandy with the reserved, cooled simple syrup. Pour the brandy syrup over the cherries in jars leaving about 1/2″ of headspace, whether you choose to can them or not.

Age. While the cherries can be enjoyed as soon as you finish them, allowing them to age at least a month will result in better flavor. Give them an occasional shake and let them sit. The longer, the better.

Tips for making brandied cherries

• Use ripe, quality fruit. You don’t want to use bruised, squishy or underripe cherries to make this. As with all preserving recipes, it’s best to use the ripest, best fruit you can acquire.
• Don’t use an expensive cognac. While you should use a good brandy, save the cognacs for more appropriate affairs.
• Don’t skimp on the sugar. I know, the last thing we need is more sugar. But sugar, along with the alcohol, acts as a preservative in this recipe so don’t give in and try to use less sugar.

Storing brandied cherries

The old-fashioned way would be to simply put the lid on the jar and place it in the cellar until later. The sugar and alcohol should be enough to preserve the fruit.

But… modern times and all that. I typically leave mine in the refrigerator. Where, by the way, they will keep forever (at least a year).

Alternatively, if you want to mess with it, you can preserve these in a water bath canner. You’ll need to process them for 25 minutes.

Other Posts You’ll Love:

• Old Fashioned No Pectin Raspberry Jam
• Low Sugar Blackberry Jam
• Strawberry Jam

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