🔴 I will not put a bright red maraschino in a whiskey drink, and this is what to do instead if you cannot get Luxardo.
It is worth knowing what the two cherries actually are, because they share a name and nothing else. A real maraschino is a marasca cherry — a small dark sour cherry from the Dalmatian coast — preserved in maraschino liqueur or in syrup made from the same fruit. Luxardo has been doing it since 1821, first in Zara and, since the family was displaced after the Second World War, at Torreglia in the Veneto.
The American supermarket cherry is a different product that inherited the name. When Prohibition made an alcohol-based process untenable, a horticulturist at Oregon Agricultural College worked out a calcium-brine method instead. The fruit is brined in calcium chloride and sulphur dioxide until it is bleached essentially white, leached, candied in sugar syrup, then dyed and flavoured with benzaldehyde for the almond note the real ones get from the pits. It is not so much an adulterated cherry as a reconstructed one.
⚠ And it is being reformulated, not withdrawn. The FDA revoked the authorisation for FD&C Red No. 3 in food in January 2025, with a compliance deadline of January 2027 — but most producers had already moved to Red 40. The colour is not going anywhere.
These are the honest middle: real dark cherries, real bourbon, no dye.
Ingredients
- 1 lb fresh dark sweet cherries (Bing, or sour Morello if you can get them), stemmed and pitted
- 1 cup bourbon
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 strip lemon peel
- 1 cinnamon stick (optional)
- 2 whole cloves (optional)
- 1 tsp almond extract, or 1 oz maraschino liqueur (optional — this is the pit note)
Directions
- Stem and pit the cherries. A cherry pitter earns its keep here; otherwise a chopstick or a piping tip through the stem end works.
- In a saucepan, combine the sugar, water, lemon juice and lemon peel with the spices if using. Heat and stir until the sugar has fully dissolved and the syrup is clear.
- Take it off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes — you do not want to boil the bourbon off.
- Stir in the bourbon and the maraschino liqueur or almond extract.
- Pack the cherries into a clean jar and pour the syrup over to cover.
- Cool completely, seal, and refrigerate. Give them at least a week before you use them; they are better at a month.
Notes
Buy the Italians if you can. A jar of Luxardo costs about what two bar drinks cost and holds around thirty cherries. Maraska, in Zadar, is the Croatian continuation of the same tradition at the original location and is generally cheaper. Fabbri Amarena — sour amarena cherries in syrup, Bologna, since 1905, in the blue-and-white jar — is softer and jammier and equally good.
🍒 The Michigan answer: Traverse City Whiskey Co. makes whiskey-soaked cherries from northern Michigan fruit, which is a perfectly legitimate local alternative and a nicer story than importing them.
The syrup in the jar is an ingredient. A barspoon of it in an Old Fashioned is a good move — but if you use it, cut the simple syrup accordingly or the drink turns cloying.
⚠ Refrigerate an opened jar — bought or homemade. These are high-sugar preserves, not shelf-stable-forever pickles, and a jar left in a warm cupboard for a year will ferment quietly.
Keeps about 6 months refrigerated. The alcohol and the sugar are doing the preserving; this is not a canning recipe and should not be treated as one.