Sweet Cherry Cocktail

"Cherry Cocktail," from Make It Like a Man

Makes 8 cocktails

Depending on your guests, 8 cocktails may serve 8 or 4. I like to have enough on-hand for 2 per person. If any is leftover, I drink it after my guests leave, to decompress. Fresh, in-season cherries are absofuckinglutely crucial. If you can’t get them, you can’t make this cocktail. That pretty much means you can only make in mid- to late-summer. This cocktail is so good, you’re going to be tempted to make a punch bowl full of it, and submerge your entire head in it. Don’t do this. (Although, if that’s where your dinner party’s headed … please invite me.)

1 cup sugar
Juice from 2-3 limes (⅓ cup, give or take)
1 pound fresh sweet cherries
8 ounces best-quality vodka
1 bottle sparkling water (750 mL) – highly carbonated, like Perrier or Faygo

1. Bring sugar and 1 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat; let cool completely. Syrup can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 1 month. 2. Put lime juice into a medium nonreactive bowl. Halve and pit cherries; add to lime juice. Stir in syrup.

Refrigerate at least 1 hour (up to overnight).

3. Set out four 12-oz glasses. Into each, pour 2 ounces of vodka. Add 1/2-cup of the cherry mixture to each glass. Give each one a good stir. Add ice to fill the glasses loosely. 4. Down one of the drinks, and then re-make it so no one knows the difference. 5. Top off each drink with sparkling water. Stir gently.

"Cherry Cocktail," from Make It Like a Man! sunflower

[1] Cocktail: This is a “classic” cocktail recipe in the sense that it includes, in addition to alcohol, both a sweet (the juice produced by the cherries as they soak in the lime juice) and sour (the lime juice) ingredient.
[2] Cherries: They have to be pretty, so you have to halve them the way you would an avocado, then remove the pit with a large paperclip. Pull the smaller loop of the paperclip away from the larger loop, 180 degrees. You should wind up with an S shape. Use the larger end of the S to carve out and scoop out the pits. Don’t wear anything you love; you’re bound to get at least a little cherry juice on yourself.
[3] Glasses: Once the drinkers finish the drinks, they’re going to want to eat the cherries – which, of course, they should, because they’re delicious. It’s preferable for the glasses to have large rims, so the drinker can pick through the ice with a fork and nab the cherries. You should use a large old-fashioned glass rather than a thin, tall tumbler.

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3 thoughts on “Sweet Cherry Cocktail

  1. You should separate out the Burcheesegur and do just a thing on that. It sounds amazing.

  2. This is very interesting. Do you really need fresh cherries? Have you tried canned?

    • Yes, you really do. They need to be sweet, full of flavor, and – very importantly – firm. If the texture’s off, they’ll loose too much of their charm.

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