Maraschino cherries are a deliciously rich, boozy and sophisticated garnish for your cocktails. Happily, it’s very easy to make your own version at home using just a handful of ingredients - honestly, the whole process takes minutes! The hardest part is waiting for the cherries to infuse for a few weeks before eating them…

So go on, why not give it a go? Your homemade cocktails will never be the same again!

What are Maraschino Cherries?

Ok, so we need to get this on the table: the neon-pink, sticky and outrageously sweet sugar bombs we all loved so much as children may be called maraschino cherries, but the process used to create them - bleach, added chemicals, preservatives and lurid food dyes - means that they bare little resemblance to the original!

Yep, those cheeky little imposters are a pale imitation of the real deal, and the flavour (if you can call headache-inducing artificial sweetener a flavour) will definitely overpower your beautiful homemade cocktails. So, let’s avoid these!

Real maraschino cherries, on the other hand are a richly fruity, deliciously boozy and classy garnish for many cocktails, from the Manhattan to the Amaretto Sour, and from an Aviation to a Last Word. Yum, yum, and more yum.

Where do Maraschino Cherries come from?

Maraschino cherries were first produced a few hundred years ago, in what is modern-day Croatia. To help conserve them, many fruits were preserved in a liqueur made by distilling the local sour cherries, grown in a place called Marasca. The liqueur itself (which is clear with a dry, almost almond flavour) also became known as Maraschino.

Around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the Luxardo distillery that produced the liqueur began selling cherries that had been candied in a syrup of Marasca cherry juice and sugar.

These delightful alcohol-infused cherries quickly became popular in Europe and the United States, where they were eaten as a delicacy and increasingly used as garnishes in the early days of the cocktail scene.

However, once Prohibition was introduced in the USA, the boozy cherries were banned! Canny entrepreneurs developed an industrial process to create imitation cherries of the same name, but without the alcohol, leading to the bright pink, non-alcoholic version we can still find on supermarket shelves today.

How do you make maraschino cherries at home?

Thankfully, the true Maraschino cherries survived Prohibition and are perfectly legal these days, and just as delicious as ever!

What’s more, it’s super easy to make your own at home, with fresh or sour cherries and free of all preservatives and food colouring.

Apart from making the perfect cocktail garnish, they’re equally mouthwatering when paired with ice cream or spooned over a boozy chocolate dessert. (A grown-up knickerbocker glory, basically!)

Easy recipe for homemade maraschino cherries

450g sour or fresh cherries, pitted
750ml Maraschino liqueur*
10g caster sugar

*You can buy Maraschino liqueur in many shops, drinks specialists or online.

• Sterilise your jar(s) - don’t cram the cherries in too tightly - then add your cherries, sugar and liqueur, and seal tightly.

• Leave in a cool, dark place (or the fridge) for a few weeks, shaking (carefully!) every few days.

• Taste them after a week or two to see if they are right for you - the longer you leave them, the richer and darker your syrup and the more infused with flavour the cherries will become.

For a slightly more advanced recipe:

• Put your cherries in a pan and pour over just enough water to cover them, along with the sugar, the juice of half a lemon and - if desired - a few drops of vanilla essence and a cinnamon stick.

• Simmer very gently for about five minutes, until the liquid has formed a syrup, then remove from the heat and add the Maraschino liqueur.

• Allow to cool, then pop them into your jar(s) and seal. Store in the fridge - they should keep for a while due to the alcohol in the syrup.

Three quick and easy cocktail recipes using Maraschino Cherries

A maraschino cherry is the perfect garnish for a classic Aviation cocktail

Aviation

35ml gin
10ml maraschino liqueur
5ml crème de violette
15ml lemon juice, freshly squeezed

Add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake with ice. Fine strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry on a cocktail pick.

Last Word

25ml gin
25ml green chartreuse
25ml Maraschino liqueur
25ml lime juice

Add all ingredients into a cocktail shaker packed with ice. Shake for about eight seconds. Strain to a cocktail glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry on a cocktail stick.

Colony

35ml gin
25ml grapefruit juice, ideally freshly squeezed
10ml maraschino liqueur

Add all your ingredients to a shaker packed with ice. Shake. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry.