Skip to main content
Drink

Cherry Bounce

A cherry liqueur made by steeping cherries with sugar, brandy, water, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cherry Bounce

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate

  1. Combine cherries and sugar in a large jug.

  2. Add 1 quart of brandy and shake well.

  3. Let mixture stand 2–3 hours.

Add brandy and water

  1. Add 2 quarts water and let stand 1 day.

  2. Add another quart brandy and 2 quarts water, repeat until 2 gallons brandy used.

Age and finish

  1. Let mixture stand about 1 month.

  2. Add cloves and cinnamon sticks.

  3. Let stand 10 days before use.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Brandy + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cherries
Provide the main fruit flavor and juice that forms the base of the liquor.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and draws juice out of the cherries, helping form the syrup.
Brandy
Acts as a solvent that extracts cherry flavor and preserves the fruit.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice notes that infuse into the liquid over time.
Cinnamon sticks
Add sweet, woody aroma that infuses into the liquid during aging.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand about 1 month. Alcohol slowly extracts flavor and color from the cherries while sugar draws out their juice. Rushing this rest leaves the liquor harsh and thin, so the full flavor needs the time.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Cinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes