Cherries in Cocktails - A Proper Garnish for the Little Italy Cocktail
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 เม.ย. 2015
- Maraschino cherries are a staple ingredient behind almost any bar. They are an extremely common garnish for a wide variety of cocktails, and if you look through the annals of historical cocktail books, you find cherries to have been a cocktail garnish for over a hundred years.
The common maraschino cherries we have today, however, bare little resemblance to the cherries bartenders in the 1800’s would have used. The original maraschino cherries were imported “Marasca” cherries, a dark sour cherry from Dalmatia (now Croatia). They were packed in a thick flavorful liqueur, and where considered a luxury treat. Soon cheaper imports sprang onto the market, trying to satisfy the American sweet tooth. These “imitation” maraschino cherries were sometimes made using questionable methods, and were usually artificially flavored in order to disguise either the lack of flavor in the resultant product, or the off-flavors which resulted from the processing. American cherries were deemed unacceptable for use since they had a softer texture which got even worse once the cherries were prepared. The Pure Food Act of 1906 paved the way to clean up the methods used for manufacturing consumables. This helped to eliminate much of the downright dangerous cherries on the market, but did nothing for the “imitators” of the real thing. In America, methods were developed to turn a “Royal Anne” cherry into a crude approximation of the maraschino cherry. Then in 1912, the FDA stepped in to clarify what it meant to be a “maraschino” cherry:
- “maraschino cherries” should be applied only to marasca cherries preserved in maraschino. This decision further described maraschino as a liqueur or cordial prepared by process of fermentation and distillation from the marasca cherry, a small variety of the European wild cherry indigenous to the Dalmatian Mountains. Products prepared from cherries of the Royal Anne type, artificially colored and flavored and put up in flavored sugar sirup might be labeled “Imitation Maraschino Cherries” (www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceMa...)
Today, non-marasca maraschino cherries are no longer required to refer to themselves as “imitation” but, once you’ve tried the real thing, you can clearly see there is no comparison. To help distinguish true marasca cherries from rest it has become common to pronounce real maraschino cherries as “mare-es-KEE-no”, as it was originally pronounced, and those neon red globes as “mare-a-CHEE-no”. For your cocktail use, the best cherries to look for are Luxardo Maraschino Cherries, while costing more than the supermarket variety, they are worth having on hand. You can thank the Pegu Club of New York for establishing the relationship with the Luxardo Company back in 2005 to bring these cherries into the US in bulk and then popularizing them amongst craft bartenders across the nation.
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Little Italy Cocktail created by Audrey Saunders
Recipe:
2 oz Rye Whiskey
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz Cynar
2 bar spoons of Luxardo Maraschino Cherry syrup: bit.ly/luxardomaraschinocherries
Instructions:
Stir ingredients with ice.
Strain into a cocktail glass.
Drizzle cherry syrup into cocktail glass.
Garnish with Luxardo Maraschino Cherry. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
I love learning in this series! Great history of cocktails! This is a fab cocktail being made!!
gorgeous glass!
thanks for the great videos Robert
Tom D Thank you for watching!
very similar to a boulvardier, I wonder how it would far with carpano or cinzano as the vermouth of choice.
I'm a fan of BadaBing cherries from Tillen Farms. Available on Amazon, they're bigger, less syrupy, and are packed with the stems on, which makes a nice presentation. Not affiliated with them, although I realize this comment reads like an ad!
Chris Crawford I agree, Love those cherries much more than the Luxardo's. I get them at Total Wine
Im kinda curious if Hess would advise you to refrigerated cynar like vermouth
I don't think you need to worry about that cynar, isn't a vermouth style product, like most spirits and liqueurs are shelf stable, with only one exception being Bailey's or any other irish cream's.
Great video! Very professional. I'd like to know how you prepare the garnish? Every time I stab a Luxardo cherry with a stainless cocktail pick, I get a syrupy, bloody mess all over the pick , the table, the glass.... What's the trick to getting a clean cherry onto a cocktail pick?
Anyone know if I could substitute Fernet Branca for the Cynar in this case?
You can always substitute when it comes to cocktails, but it won't be the same drink. I would suggest you try it out, if it's good; you may have just invented a new cocktail. Think of a new name, and you've got a drink. Sometimes the best cocktails are just slight variations on classics and, if you make them yourself, they're even better.
dalusa81 Fernet Branca has a very different flavor profile than Cynar. If you use it, which we encourage you to try, it will be a totally different cocktail, like Jac the Sipper mentions below.
Very nice overall presentation. But, I'm disappointed in the use bamboo picks. It's not a tiki! Lol. The little Italy is a sophisticated blend of fine artisanal flavors. Use an appropriate stainless or gold pick. Sorry. But very nice overall.
To me those red cherries should only to used in Tiki drinks to add colour to garnishes, and not meant to be eaten. For traditional cocktails you should only use real maraschino cherries or brandied cherries.
Tiki drinks deserve to be not disgusting too. Say no to neon cherries. There's nothing lesser about a well-made tiki drink.
joffeloff I agree, but red cherries are pretty much associated with those tropical drinks now, it won't be easy to remove neon cherries from drinking completely.
Shawn Long
The kind of people who want a neon red cherry in their drink are the kind of people who would happily pay money for a neon-colored 'mai tai' (not a mai tai). I meant the original tiki recipes.
True, but then cherries shouldn't even be in a Mai Tai or Zombie.
LOL you are obviously clueless. Hopefully you learned a few things about Cocktails in the last 8 years.
It's not marasheeno cherries. It's maraSKEEno cherries. How hard is it to pronounce the name properly?
Robert does pronounce it 'maraSKEEno'. Did you not watch the video?