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What to do with Cherries soaking in Alcohol

post #1 of 7
7/28/09 at 2:58pm
Thread Starter 
A couple of summers ago, I picked dark, sweet cherries from our tree in the garden and put them in jars and filled the jars with pure clear alcohol (weingeist in german). The alcohol is i think 98%. Very strong. These jars have been sitting in my cellar for 2 years now, and I'm ready to experiment.

Last year I tried two different things, simply filtering the liquid and adding a lot of brown sugar to one liter, and fine white sugar to another.

I would love to have some suggestions on what I could do with the cherries and with the flavored alcohol. I would also appreciate any recipes for a cherry liquor.

Prost! and Thanks in advance
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post #2 of 7
7/28/09 at 3:30pm
chuck the cherries. they've done their duty.

what's the concept behind adding brown/white sugar?

starting out with almost pure alcohol - 200 proof - is a zinger. that's way past typical Kirsch Schnapps. that strength alcohol can be dangerous - consumption of essentially "pure" alcohol is not recommended.
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post #3 of 7
7/28/09 at 3:43pm
Thread Starter 
to be clear, i most certainly watered it down, and I actually also experimented with adding a bit of polish bison grass vodka (added an interesting taste to the mix). I added the sugar in an attempt to thicken the liquid and to change the taste. I found that while the taste of the cherries transfered to the alcohol, I was missing sweetness. So, by adding water and sugar, I tried to turn my concoction into something enjoyable (and drinkable).

Why did I do this to begin with? Well, I remember when I was young, my grandfather was constantly taking different types of alcohol and adding the various fruits from the garden to them - I would see the glass jars down in his cellar.

Couple of summers ago, we had so many cherries, I didn't know what to do with them, so after talking to some neighbors - they suggested just taking a pure form of alcohol and adding the cherry taste to it - I kind of just jumped into this, without really knowing what i was doing. But last year, using just a portion of the cherry alcohol - I was able to make a passable syrupy liqueor, beautiful red color, good to pour over a bowl of ice cream, or even to add to coffee.
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post #4 of 7
7/28/09 at 5:11pm
We have always done the same with Fresh Peaches and Moonshine....
Chill it and shoot it.....or just relax and sip it.....of course this was
some "A" grade home-made liquor.....smooth, smooth, smooth.
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post #5 of 7
7/29/09 at 5:46am
have you tried making a simple syrup and adding the cherry-geist to that?
sounds more controllable than adding sugar and more sugar, and ..., to get a thickened syrup - and if you are going for a heavier syrup it's likely you'll need to heat the mix - which will drive off some alcohol.

you could play with some other flavors in the syrup - cherry and almond is one of my favorites.
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post #6 of 7
7/29/09 at 4:06pm
Important culinary principle...

While you're working with this stuff DON'T SMOKE :eek:

I have a bottle of Bacardi 151-proof rum whici I am afraid to use due to the "FLAMMABLE" warnings all over the bottle.

Adding to my insecurity is a fine-mesh metal flame arrestor clamped over the top of the bottle, with several warnings not to remove it under any circumstance!

How would Bananas Foster work with something safer, like maybe Napalm? :bounce:

Mike
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post #7 of 7
7/29/09 at 4:17pm
The cherry moonshine sounds like it would be good for Cherries Jubilee.
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