Ch...ch...ch...cherry bomb!!!

Can you tell what this post will be about?

With that obscure reference to The Runaways, you probably think this post will be about music. And while I am still rocking out to 70s and 80s records (cuz our record player now works!!!) this is actually going to be a post about making Cherry Liqueur.

Note the cherry juice everywhere! I tried to protect the kettle in the background with a dishcloth...didn't work so well.

Thanks to the high high temperatures and low low amounts of rain we've been getting the cherries are ready and ripe and delicious and sweet in the Niagara region. And thankfully I live in the heart of it and so can just walk up the concession and a basket of cherries. Or if my mom is here, we'll drive up the concession and buy two, like we did this Sunday past.  With the plethora of cherries, I started to look up recipes to use them in (of course I've also gorged on them - ripe and raw- as it were.) Everything was some sort of sugary baked good, not really what I'm in the mood for in the middle of the summer of deadly heat. So, I thought I'd make sugary alcohol, because I'm sure I'll be in the mood to have sugar in the middle of the winter when the alcohol will be ready.

Cherries and sugar and vodka...not really any more complicated than that.

I also just happened to be reading a book called Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris (she wrote Chocolat as well) about the German occupation of France during World War II that had a recipe for Cherry Liqueur in it.  And after reading the following, I couldn't not make it:

The secret is to leave the stones in. Layer cherries and sugar one on the other in a widemouthed glass jar, covering each layer gradually with clear spirit (kirsch is best, but you can use vodka or even Armagnac) up to half the jar’s capacity. Top up with spirit and wait. Every month, turn the jar carefully to release any accumulated sugar. In three years’ time the spirit has bled the cherries white, itself stained deep red now, penetrating even to the stone and the tiny almond inside it,becoming pungent, evocative, a scent of autumn past. Serve in tiny liqueur glasses, with a spoon to scoop out the cherry, and leave it in the mouth until the macerated fruit dissolves under the tongue. Pierce the stone with the point of a tooth to release the liqueur trapped inside and leave it for a long time in the mouth, playing it with the tip of the tongue, rolling it under, over, like a single prayer bead. Try to remember the time of its ripening, that summer, that hot autumn, the time the well ran dry, the time we had the wasps’ nests, time past, lost, found again in the hard place at the heart of the fruit… 

So I spent all of last night pitting cherries (which is a juicy job!) and making liqueur that will hopefully be delicious in a couple of years...and if not, at least it will have been a helpful patience builder for me.

Cherry stained fingertips!

After reading a couple of recipes, I did change it up a bit from recipe in the book. I have to say that I am not patient enough to wait 3 years, so I pitted the cherries (thus opening up the cherries to the alcohol and hopefully speeding up the process a bit). I did break open the pits and remove the intensely almond flavoured seed inside, to include in the batches - to hopefully create a layering of flavours. 

Cracked open cherry pit with the little nugget of almondy-goodness in the middle. There were cherry pits flying all over the room until I got pit-cracking down to an art. I ended up using wire-cutters~the pliers ended up just squishing everything.

But like the passage from the book I did layer the cherries (plus about 8 cherry pit seeds per jar) with sugar, probably about 3/4 of a cup per jar and then topped up each layer with vodka, until I had two jars that were 3/4 full of cherries and sugar and then I just topped it up the rest of the way. Then I labelled them both with their official open dates!

Notice, I am a little short on patience. One is to be opened this New Year's (I figure that they will be an interesting addition to the champagne). And I'll wait a full year and a half before cracking the second one.

And now I can't wait for New Year's!