The only limit to what a cocktail garnish can be, really, is your imagination. A garnish can be as simple as a strip of citrus zest, asgaudy as an entire piece of bacon, or as versatile as the appropriately named cocktail cherry—capable of finishing a stiff manhattan or adrink with a dozen ingredientsequally well. The cherries I remember from my youth were neon pink, slightly translucent sugar bombs with a texture that, confusingly, seemed both waxy and mushy. When I became old enough to drink (I promise I never drank before that, Mom), I dropped those neon sugar blobs into my amateur cocktails—and they brought little more than an overpowering sweetness and a hint of pink iridescence.
A few years later I started ordering drinks at bars that took more care with their cocktails. It was at one of these that I had my firstrealcocktail cherry. Its color was a deep, dark red—almost black—and it had a chew that could only come from real fruit. Most importantly, it actually tasted like a cherry andcomplementedinstead of overpowered the cocktail I ordered. My takeaway from this experience: Whatever I’m drinking, the cocktail cherry I use should be as balanced as the cocktail it sits in.
I rounded up a dozen leading brands of craft cocktail cherries, including some presoaked in different spirits like rum, bourbon, and amaro. And I tasted them to find the best one. For the test I did a blind tasting of the cherries straight with some friends. I didn’t add them to cocktails because I didn't want to cloud the pure flavor. After we’d tasted everything we talked about what we liked, what we didn’t, possible applications, and came to a unanimous decision about four cherries.
The classic, the original, the ubiquitous choice for thoughtful bartenders everywhere, Luxardo is difficult to beat. The cherry flavor is rich and it offers the right balance of sweet and tart. These Italian cherries have an almost meaty texture that’s really pleasant to eat at the end of a cocktail. That we all knew they were Luxardo cherries even in a blind taste test was pretty telling—we’ve all come to accept them as the standard cocktail cherry, having had them so many times out at bars, and keeping them stocked in our home bars. We tried to not let that paint a bias on our testing, but when we tasted them against the other brands, they just stayed at the top.
These are wild Italian cherries, and we all agreed that we liked them as much as we liked the Luxardo cherries but for different reasons. The texture was on par with Luxardo, but the cherry flavor was different—a bit more intense and tart. While the Luxardo cherries are more balanced, making them versatile and good to use in just about any cocktail that calls for a cherry, we agreed that the added tartness here might be nice to counterbalance sweeter cocktails, likeold- fashioneds. We also agreed that these would be better used on ice cream (particularly vanilla) than Luxardo cherries because the tartness would complement the sweet creaminess so well. These are certainly worth stocking in your home bar.
We tried three different bourbon-soaked cherries and Woodford Reserve easily took the crown. The texture was a bit softer than a Luxardo cherry but still carried that nice bit of chew we all wanted from a cocktail cherry. These were nice and complex—the cherry and bourbon complemented each other beautifully. Not too sweet, not overly tart, Woodford Reserve’s cherries were balanced but also had more complexity than any of us expected. We found the other bourbon-soaked cherries to be too boozy—possibly in part because of the lesser quality of the bourbon used to soak them—they even had that alcoholic bite, like when a drink is just too strong. The Woodford Reserve cherries had delicate vanilla notes that fully penetrated each cherry, that made us all want to reach for more, like a grown-up candy. We all agreed that while we would try to use them in cocktails more, we’d all likely snack on these more regularly than we cared to admit.
Tillen Farms makes a bourbon cherry that we didn’t love, and when we realized that these were also Tillen Farms, we were pleasantly surprised. The bourbon cherries had that boozy bite that we didn’t really care for, but the rum cherries were smooth, like a well-mixed cocktail. Zero alcoholic bite, but a splash of floral vanilla flavor and hints of tropical fruit gave these cherries the most interesting flavor profile out of the whole batch. Truthfully, while we felt these flavors were probably just subtle enough to get washed out by a cocktail, we felt that the layers of flavor had tiki drink vibes strong enough to make us crave a round or two ofSingapore slings,mai tais, and Hurricanes. And then a nap.
We Also Tried
We likedCollins’ bourbonoffering but not as much as the winning Woodford Reserve.
Collins’ Bordeaux Cherrieswere fine but nothing terribly special. They had some nice wine notes, weren’t overly boozy, and would be great to snack on, but the flavors were so subtle we thought they would get lost in a cocktail.
We loved the flavor on theAmarena Fabbri cherriesbut not the texture. They were a bit mushy.
The bourbon taste was too sharp and boozy in theseTillen Farmscherries to enjoy them on their own but would probably be fine in a cocktail—we wouldn’t necessarily recommend them for any other purpose, making them less versatile than the winning bourbon cherries.
These were great, almost comparable to the Luxardo cherries, but ultimately they didn’t surpass our winners. The cherries have a pleasing snap and strong cherry flavor, so if you’re already shopping on Stonewall Kitchen and need some cherries, they’re worth buying.
TheseMaraschinos最近在颜色和质地的霓虹灯雪儿ries of my youth, which was nice for nostalgia. Honestly, you could do a lot worse than these—they’re like a particularly good version of the neon cherries of years gone by, good for a homemade sundae to get that classic ice cream parlor vibe.
None of us cared forPeninsula cherries. Too sickly sweet and mushy.
More than one of us noted thatTraverse City Whiskey Co.’s cherriestasted like cherry cough syrup. The texture was fine, but we couldn’t get past the medicinal, almost fake-tasting cherry flavor.
