Summer is cherry season in Washington State. You can’t go anywhere that sells produce and avoid being bombarded with Bings and Rainiers (which have reached official cult status). We had cherries growing at our house most summers growing up, and I liked them, but the cherries up here are really incredible. For whatever reason, though, these aren’t usually the maraschino variety you’ll find in your drink at a bar.
Instead, you’ll likely see the neon red glow of a Maraschino cherry in your glass (or the dull burgundy of Luxardo cherries if you’re lucky, or just if you’re at a bar that cares about garnishes…). Regardless of which you get, you’ll no doubt notice that these cherries taste absolutely nothing like the fresh fruit you’ll find in the summer.
And, neither of they actual cherries will actually taste much like the Maraschino liqueur that’s increasingly contentious because we need more things to fight about on twitterdotcom. I’m not an actual farmer, so I’ll stick to “I like cherries” as my position on the fresh fruit. But let’s dive in on “maraschino” as the seasonal ingredient of focus.
Maraschino Cherries
In general, these are cherries that are brined, then bleached, then dyed, and heavily sweetened. Ironically, the current archetype of the category is an imitation of the original market leader which is preserved in booze. After all of that, regardless of the production process, it’s understandable how they manage to neither look nor taste much like a cherry you go out an pick. They’re iconic in Americana because they look and taste like how I imagine the 50s looked and tasted.
History
We’ll get into the naming and true origins when we talk about the liqueur, and if you want a real long-form piece then I suggest this Imbibe piece. Here are the hits:
The cherries themselves came to America in the late 1800s and got popular in nice bars. American ingenuity eventually changed the preservation process to avoid using cherries that didn’t grow naturally and a liqueur that couldn’t be made well here and began to have to officially identify as “imitation” maraschino cherries. This worked out well for these producers since their product stayed legal during prohibition.
A professor at Oregon State worked out the current brining process, ostensibly to keep the fruit firmer rather than corner a market that was now illegal, officially severing ties with the liqueur for which the category is named. The bright red color and bitter almond flavoring was added at the same time, and once booze was legal the producers went to work to preserve their now-profitable market.
To defend from the now-legal boozy imports, these guys convinced the FDA to reclassify maraschino cherries to no longer require the presence of the alcohol in 1940. This is like Webster’s redefining literally to also mean figuratively, but hey – politics!
Types
So, we now live in a world where maraschino cherries are either actual marasca cherries preserved in maraschino liqueur or neon red products of American prohibition/ingenuity that have literally nothing to do with the marasca cherries they’re named after. That’s understandably confusing when you’re trying to figure out what to buy and two distinct products share a name.
Thankfully they look very different, so better to use your eyes than the words on the package here. For simplicity sake, I’ll use maraschino cherry to refer to the bright-red product of American labs and Luxardo cherries to refer to the best-remaining semblance of the original concept.
Maraschino cherries are designed to artificially recreate the subtle flavors of the original, but all of that subtlety gets lost. The vanilla and almond flavoring is added directly and it comes through clearly right from the start. The flavor is almost pure sugar, though, and it doesn’t linger. It’s a dessert in a bite.
Luxardo cherries actually still taste like a cherry, at least on some level. You’ll taste almond still, but that’s actually from the cherry pits that are still kept around in distillation of the liqueur. Other than that, the flavor is unmistakably cherry, but the intense sugar deepens the flavors; where you get brightness from a fresh cherry you get more pure, deep fruit-of-the-forest sour here.
Uses
Obviously, both cherries work wonderfully as a garnish. I like the lighter maraschino cherries in lighter drinks because the intensity of Luxardo cherries can sometimes overpower more delicate flavors. A Luxardo cherry in an old fashioned or Manhattan is pretty much perfect whereas I actually like the maraschino cherry as a unique option in a vodka martini. If you’re using the liqueur in the drink, drop in a Luxardo cherry and it will almost always work.
However, don’t focus only on the fruit that you forget the juice they’re packed in! The actual juice can be used as a syrup (because that’s what it is) in pretty much any drink that needs some sweetness. It also lends great color to any drink and can make your drink both more delicious and more beautiful all at the same time. It’s incredibly sweet, much more so than most 50/50 simple syrups, so don’t use much. A little goes a long way here, especially in a rye old fashioned.
Maraschino Liqueur
I started with the cherries because I assume that’s the first thing that pops into your brain when you hear the word maraschino. But, obviously, that’s not where the word came from. It comes from the liqueur that you’re probably seeing more and more of on cocktail menus.
History
Marasca cherries really only grow in one place: Croatia (in the period we care about, it was really Dalmatia). The name for the cherry comes from Italian because they’re so bitter (amaro to marasca…). That bitterness is what lead the Dalmatians to stop eating them directly and instead turn them into alcohol.
That started when an enterprising Venetian entered the scene in 1759, and that took off like a rocket in Europe because they didn’t have enough sweet alcohol lying around…(I mean, they did, but 18th century European economics weren’t covered in my Economic Consulting major so I’m going to assume it was a market gap and move on). Regardless, the boozy cherry juice remained the centerpiece of the local economy until WWII, gaining popularity with the nobility of Europe the whole time.
To keep up with the high-brow demand, the industry fragmented with individual farms taking over their own production and even bottling splitting to different glass makers. One family, the current market leader, purports to have produced the same liqueur from the same farm since 1821. This is essentially impossible to actually verify, but I’ll be damned if the straw on the bottle doesn’t sell that story…
Profile
The aspect of maraschino that I think stands out most is the nose: if all you knew was that the clear liquid was made from cherries, the nutty nose would absolutely shock you. Turns out cherry pits and nuts share quite a bit in flavor profile, so it makes sense once you think a few more seconds, but right up front it’s jarring.
The nut doesn’t disappear on the palate, but it takes a back seat to the kind of very deep cherry flavor that you almost pick up in artificial flavoring (but not quite). The bitter, nutty flavor along with the boozy burn on the finish give it a medicinal quality, but overwhelmingly what I taste is pure fruit sugar with a bitter nut backbone. That combination is what makes this such a powerful addition to a drink.
Cocktails
The ingredient is having a renaissance right now; unlike triple sec, this is the kind of ingredient you can put all over your list and convince people. Like all ingredients, if you use it wrong it’s not going to make a good drink. Here are a few easy, good expressions where you don’t have to risk that (writeups in order left-to-right below).
The Last Word
A drink I was introduced to in Seattle (it’s not from here originally, but the modern incarnation is!), it’s one of the original instigators of the new-wave equal-parts cocktail renaissance. Equal parts gin, maraschino, green chartreuse, and fresh lemon juice, this drink has a lot going on. It’s actually too much for some folks I know who love cocktails, so tread lightly here.
You’ll get the gin clearly, and the rest of the ingredients then combine to create a strong, sweet flavor of anise. One of the only maraschino-heavy cocktails where you really won’t taste cherry, this is instead an herb-bomb that’s made a bit sour. If you really like a stiff drink, or a drink that’s almost-neon green, this one is for you.
Florida Special
A rare drink with maraschino that doesn’t calls for neither whiskey nor gin, this discovery from the Ultimate Bar Book relies on a dark rum. With rum, 2 liqueurs, and orange juice involved, it’s certainly a sweet dram. The flavors layer well, though, and the orange and cherry play together perfectly to make you wish you were outside on a porch swing on a warm evening. That’s by far the best way to enjoy this one.
Aviation
Hot take time: the creme de violette traditionally included in this drink ruins it. It makes the ingredient list much more interesting and the color much more appealing on the bar, but it ruins the delicacy of the flavor. None of the other flavors can come over the floral notes, so it’s a lot like drinking perfume with an interesting finish.
Turns out, this isn’t actually a hot take as it’s been the recipe more-widely published since 1930 in The Savoy Cocktail Book…but it makes me feel like I have opinions that belong on the internet so indulge me Remove the flower milk and what you’re left with is an interesting off-dry martini that picks up actual fruit and sour at the expense of herbs. I like it a lot.
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