Marschino cherries

[tamarinne]

Someone out there (was it you, learnedax ?) was talking about making their own maraschino cherries at some point in the past.  (That narrows it down, I know.)    Did that someone actually end up making them?  Was it worth it?  What recipe did you use?  We're buying a bottle of Luxardo to try to recreate The World's Best Brandy Manhattan that we had this weekend, and I started wondering about real vs. imitation Maraschino cherries and if making them from scratch was worth the effort.  Also, my search at lunch today yielded about a million recipes (brine, don't brine, almond extract, kirsch, maraschino liquer, etc, etc) and if someone had good or bad results with a particular recipe, I'd be curious to hear a report.

Comments

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Well, I did make my own, just by sealing up dark cherries (I couldn't find Marasca ones) with Maraschino for a couple of weeks. That makes a pretty potent cherry, though. If you wanted something a little more like modern ones, just less artificial, you could probably get that by mixing simple syrup with the liqueur.

I would guess that brining gets you longer shelf life with some sacrifice in flavor - my understanding is that it was not part of the earliest recipes.

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

The info I saw on the earliest recipes (which was on the internet, so, you know, not to be trusted) suggested they pickled the cherries in sea water, then soaked them in maraschino liquer. I might buy some cherries and try it both ways, just to see. :)

[fairestyarrow.livejournal.com]

For myself, before I tried making my own, I might check out the organic options, which may have simpler recipes behind them.
Good luck!

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

It's mostly just a curiosity thing - the article I read about it was talking about how different maraschino cherries used to be before Prohibition, when they stopped being made with alcohol. What we call maraschino cherries would have been labeled "imitation" back in the day. I suspect I'll probably be happy making them once, satisfying my curiosity, and then won't need to make them again. :)

[melebeth]

Oddly enough I just watched an IRC conversation about "real" vs fake grenadine.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I tried making some of that about the same time. I found homemade more flavorful, but less, hrm, bright and sweet in character compared with the commercial kind.